{"id":10431,"date":"2018-07-03T23:49:45","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T03:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=10431"},"modified":"2018-07-04T08:14:43","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T12:14:43","slug":"procrustean-beds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=10431","title":{"rendered":"Procrustean Beds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today fine drizzle is falling like mist (the Scots have a wonderful onomatopoetic term for this: smirr). And once again, as I contemplate one of my novels-in-progress – Shard Songs<\/em>, part of which unfolds in the Bronze Age Mediterranean – I find myself thinking about specificities of culture and how languages convey nuances of their societies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Much has been made of the first translation of the Odyssey in English by a woman. Yet what I’ve seen of Emily Wilson’s translation has left me ambivalent. I greatly appreciate the intent and am fully aware of this particular translation’s significance. Ditto for Caroline Alexander\u2019s Iliad. But I’m not sure about the execution, which to me feels flabby and flat despite the reviewers\u2019 enthusiasm about \u201cuncovering hidden inequalities\u201d (which are actually never glossed over in the original: the Odyssey is an uncomfortable read, especially for a woman).<\/p>\n

All recent English translations of the Homeric epics I\u2019ve seen (as far as I could tolerate reading them) diverge significantly from the original. That’s not unusual in poetry, especially between such disaparate eras and languages. Recasting an archaic poem in plain language so that it becomes as accessible to today’s audience as it was in its own era is a sound strategy; stripping it entirely of its patina (and flattening its terms and rhythms) is decidedly less optimal.<\/p>\n

To give one example, translations of the Iliad that cast the first word as an exclamation lose me there and then. The word is a noun in accusative form, and casting it as an exclamation completely derails that crucial stanza. For poetry like this it\u2019s important to be a scholar, but equally so to have a feel for language. Better yet to be a poet in one\u2019s own right. I recall the gorgeous Elytis translation of Brecht\u2019s The Good Woman of Szechuan<\/em> \u2013 and how abysmally disappointed I was when I later read it in the original German (maybe Shakespeare does sound better in Klingon\u2026). Elytis, of course, was a bard whereas Brecht deliberately used flat language as a distancing effect. So here\u2019s my rendering of the opening of the Odyssey, with the Watson and Fagles equivalents for comparison.<\/p>\n

Of the wily man tell me, goddess, who suffered
\nsore trials after he sacked the holy fortress of Troy:
\nhe saw cities of many people and learned their minds,
\nand his spirit got wracked on the seas, as he struggled
\nto save his life and bring his companions home.<\/p>\n

Emily Wilson’s version (2018):<\/p>\n

Tell me about a complicated man.
\nMuse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
\nwhen he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
\nand where he went, and who he met, the pain
\nhe suffered in the storms at sea, and how
\nhe worked to save his life and bring his men
\nback home.<\/p>\n

And Robert Fagles\u2019 (1996):<\/p>\n

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
\ndriven time and again off course, once he had plundered
\nthe hallowed heights of Troy.
\nMany cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
\nmany pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
\nfighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.<\/p>\n

Speaking of flattening, I recently saw someone rejoicing online that “Greek culture” (which one?) \u201ccompletely normalized\u201d gay relationships. Before we hasten to celebrate this, people must realize that most of these relationships were based on steep power differentials: a) a rigid dominance binary of active\/penetrator versus passive\/penetrated (as is the case in several contemporary cultures, in which only the latter is considered \u201chomosexual\u201d); b) a significant age\/experience gap (an early-middle-aged erastes & a barely pubescent eromenos \u2013 the relationship was considered a rite of passage into manhood) and c) the firm assumption that women were not full humans, and existed primarily for labor and\/or procreation.<\/p>\n

Ironically the exceptions to the last were courtesans, heavily disempowered in other ways: inter alia they were not citizens, which meant they could be deported at whim. In this connection it’s pertinent that hetairos and hetaira had such different connotations in pre-Byzantine Hellenic: the masculine form meant an equal male companion; the feminine one, a geisha-like female professional entertainer who might get to wield significant \u2013 but always covert \u2013 power (Aspasia, Pericles\u2019 celebrated companion, is the best-known example). James Davidson makes an additional point in his lucid, enlightening Courtesans and Fishcakes<\/a><\/em>: the dominant partner was not interested in his companion\u2019s pleasure. Sex was considered akin to eating; whether the food or the sexual vessel enjoyed the process was irrelevant.<\/p>\n

Of course, there were (quasi-)equal gay relationships in classic-era Hellas: the Theban Hier\u00f3s L\u00f3chos, whose fierce warriors were pair-bonded lovers (though the pairs still adhered to the erastes\/eromenos binary); Alexander and Hephaestion, though the descriptions (including the quips about Hephaestion\u2019s triumphant thighs) make clear who held the upper hand \u2013 and, very oddly for one of his upbringing and milieu, Alexander\u2019s marriage to Roxana was widely held to be the \u201clightning strike\u201d kind of love-falling, especially as it conferred absolutely no political advantage; several of Sappho\u2019s named flames \u2013 though her (male) peers granted her the dubious privilege that, as a woman, she could allow passion to overwhelm her.<\/p>\n

This brings us to another cultural difference: it\u2019s fairly well-known that, unlike English, classical Hellenic had several terms for \u201clove\u201d each with a significantly different connotation that persists, with some drift, in today\u2019s spoken Greek. \u201cAgape\u201d was the dutiful feeling between parents and children, or the love reserved for abstractions; \u201cphilia\u201d was devoted friendship between equals; and then there was \u201ceros\u201d – consuming passion. This the Greeks considered an all-powerful madness that could unhinge a orderly, well-regulated life. It\u2019s oddly fitting that a powerful paean to eros (or is it an apotropaic exorcism?) occurs in Sophocles\u2019 Antigone<\/em>, a work that parses clashing perceptions of duty and love. Some argue that romantic love as we now think of it was forged by the troubadours of Eleanor\u2019s Aquitanian court.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In fewer words: I think there was love of all kinds in all eras and cultures, but specificities do exist. Don’t squeeze behaviors of other times and places in Procrustean beds to force-fit them into today’s culture wars. Ok, back to watching my foxglove bathing contentedly in the smirr.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Related articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iskander, Khan Tengri<\/a><\/p>\n

Ashes from Burning Libraries<\/a><\/p>\n

Close Your Eyes and Think of Ap\u00f3llon<\/a><\/p>\n

Caesars and Caesar Salads<\/a><\/p>\n

Hidden Histories (the Akritik\u00e1 folksongs)<\/a><\/p>\n

The Blackbird Singing: Sapf\u00f3 of L\u00e9svos<\/a><\/p>\n

If I Forget Thee, O My Grandmother\u2019s Lost Home<\/a><\/p>\n

Images:<\/strong> top, part of Alan Lee\u2019s cover for The Wanderings of Odysseus<\/em> by Rosemary Sutcliff; bottom, Ir\u00edni Papp\u00e1 (Antigone) and M\u00e1ro Konto\u00fa (Ismene) in Antigone<\/em> (1961 film version of the Sophocles play<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today fine drizzle is falling like mist (the Scots have a wonderful onomatopoetic term for this: smirr). And once again, as I contemplate one of my novels-in-progress – Shard Songs, part of which unfolds in the Bronze Age Mediterranean – I find myself thinking about specificities of culture and how languages convey nuances of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology-and-culture","category-history","category-poetry","category-writing-and-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}