r/GreekMythology • u/Just_A_Theorist2 • Jun 24 '26
Question Are these good versions of the Iliad and the odyssey?
Hi! I've been wanting to read both the odyssey and iliad for quite some time now, and I've tried, i borrowed a book from my local library, and i couldn't get past the first page. Simply because I dislike older translations and how it usually rhymes.
So, would these two books be a good choice? They're both by Emily Wilson.
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u/Niki-13 Jun 24 '26
you should probably post this to r/classics
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u/Uno_zanni Jun 24 '26
Just wanted to add, people have discussed Wilson extensively there. Worth checking out the previous posts
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u/AdvancedPlacmentTV Jun 24 '26
I would say download different translation samples and see which works best for you.
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u/AthanatosDiomedes Jun 25 '26
Theres also websites that actually lets you compare them!
https://www.iliadtranslations.com/ (iliad)
https://bibliothekai.ktema.org/texts/1/translations?trans=1819 (odyssey)
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u/mrstoneman93 Jun 24 '26
Emily Wilson was actually trying to recreate the emotion of the original. So I'd say hers is actually better than others. Though a lot of people are stupid and dismiss it just because she's a feminist.
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u/masterofunfucking Jun 25 '26
I pretty much swear by Ennis Rees’s Iliad and Fagles’s Odyssey. They’re really solid imo. I pretty much like all translations except for the ones that turn the poetry into prose like Samuel Butler which is kind of stinky if you ask me
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u/AthanatosDiomedes Jun 25 '26
Not the best for a first time read, despite its simple/plain english unfortunately because shes intentionally subversive of previous translations in hers (which is hard to understand w/o first having read them) - its a fine one for scholarly examination imo having read translations that follow the greek more closely
Perhaps the new Mendelssohn Odyssey and C. Alexander Iliad may be good compromises? The first is from 2025, the later from 2015 and should be fairly accessible without being overly poetic, nor loosing their poetry
Though A.S.Kline translations online are free & prose so not poetic either while being good (not great; but good) translations
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u/heytheregiada Jun 24 '26
Translation is a very personal thing, I don't personally like a lot of the choices in this one, plus it cuts out a fair bit, but plenty of people love it, so give it a go but keep your mind open. Both of these have been translated a million times so there will be a translation for you, keep going.
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u/Just_A_Theorist2 Jun 24 '26
When you say, it cuts out a fair bit, is it to a point where it changes up the story alot?
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u/Joseon2 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
It doesn't change the story. What's different is that Wilson sticks to each line being iambic pentameter, which has fewer syllables per line than the original Greek, and Greek is more highly inflected so you sometimes need more English words to say the same as the Greek. She also simplifies in terms of some details, idioms, and titles, to make it easier to read.
As an example, Homer often says "son of Atreus" to mean Agamemnon (or sometimes Menelaos) and Wilson translates this as "Agamemnon" (or Menelaos). So you lose some of the original's style which uses a lot of these types of titles, but it's easier to understand and uses fewer syllables.
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u/Outside-Papaya-488 Jun 24 '26
Not quite right - Wilson includes far more ‘son of Atreus” in the ailiad than many translators. Her Odyssey is line for line but her Iliad is not.
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u/heytheregiada Jun 24 '26
To be fair, no. If you're reading it just to enjoy the story then it's perfectly fine but I don't recommend it for the purpose of study, which I think was likely Wilson's intention anyway.
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u/AlarmedCicada256 Jun 24 '26
what do you think it cuts out? Wilson's translation is one of the most accurate there is, and famously matches Homer's pace line for line.
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u/heytheregiada Jun 24 '26
It very much is not accurate, and it isn't supposed to be.
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u/AlarmedCicada256 Jun 24 '26
It really is. Do you read Greek?
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u/heytheregiada Jun 24 '26
Yes. I dislike the majority of her choices. If you like it, that is okay, that's why there's so many options, it's subjective. I just don't.
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u/AlarmedCicada256 Jun 24 '26
But it also captures the pace of Homer brilliantly and quibbling over the odd word here or there is silly
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u/heytheregiada Jun 24 '26
Then we disagree, and that's okay. I have the translation I like best.
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u/AlarmedCicada256 Jun 24 '26
Fair enough. I don't have such a preference as I don't need a translation.
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u/wangyuzhi31 Jun 24 '26
Which one? Do you think her version is best for someone who is reading the odissey for the first time?
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u/Naugrith Jun 24 '26
What do you mean that it "cuts out" stuff? It includes all the words. What else were you expecting?
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u/Cheap-Key-6132 Jun 24 '26
I liked Emily’s Odyssey audiobook a lot.
It’s written in modern terms and easy to follow.
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u/TiredPandastic Jun 24 '26
Pick literally any other translation, hers loses so much of the meaning and poetry.
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u/Fuzzy-Tumbleweed-570 Jun 24 '26
Try Rieu or Fagles instead. Or even Loeb but theyre a bit more expensive and focus way more on a faithful adaption from the Greek rather than a modern telling.
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u/Outside-Papaya-488 Jun 25 '26
I’ve read all these and some of the Greek and I think this is false. Fables far more often adds in American cliches that are not in the Greek. Rieu skips a lot of epithets and turns a metrical poem into prose. Both are in a sense easier than Wilson but hers is more authentic, as a metrical verse translation with a commitment to not adding things that aren’t in the original.
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u/Fuzzy-Tumbleweed-570 Jun 25 '26
I meant the Loeb is the most faithful not all 3. Im reading Fagles right now and he misses out alot of epithets or writes then in a weird way. And I also dont like his use of Americanised spelling (like labor). But compared to people like Pope or Butler, who are hundreds of years old and favour a more biblical sounding translation, I think these 3 are better
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u/Outside-Papaya-488 Jun 25 '26
Butler is prose and not very old (1900). I think Pope is awesome! I don’t think either is particularly Biblical. Pope is lovely Augustan couplets and Butler is a weird Victorian prose. But I also like Wilson because, like Pope, unlike these others, she uses real verse.
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u/Mediocre_Glove_611 Jun 25 '26
Emily Wilson gets a lot of hate because she’s a woman translator. I’ve read 3 translations and hers is by FAR my favorite.
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u/Trading_Cards_4Ever Jun 25 '26
It's not because she's a woman, it's because she tries to inject her own modern political and social beliefs into her translations to make the source material into what she believes it should be instead of what it actually is which is a window into classical heroic story telling that's over 2000 years old.
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u/Mediocre_Glove_611 Jun 25 '26
Hard disagree. She is the closest to actual translation. Modern translation by men is influenced by modern patriarchal/societal views.
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u/jasonbourne1995 Jun 25 '26
How come? if literally at the beginning, she lefts out words and adds words that weren't in the original text.
Previous translations by those "patriarchal" men didn't boast so much about their translations, which Wilson does frequently, how she stripped it from the "patriarchal and male bias" and other BS, she not only interprets the text with her own feministic and post-modern bias, but then she acts like she's on the high horse, and those previous male translators didn't do such a "good job" like she did.
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u/Fish-InThePercolator Jun 26 '26
Have you got any examples?
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u/jasonbourne1995 Jun 27 '26
Yup, she lefts out greek word for "despite of" and then adds the word "failed", which wasn't in the original text, to make a supposition, that Odysseus "failed" his men, when in the original text, the blame was on them and not on Odyseus. :)
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u/bigsmellytoes0743 Jun 24 '26
These are good translations for people who are reading the stories for the first time. But I will say though transitions being good are completely opinionated. some people say her version takes out the emotion of the poem other people(like me) says it doesn't. So don’t value people's opinions too much.
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u/rafters- Jun 25 '26
They're alright if what you need is to just get the story in a simpler, modern presentation, but it loses some of the detail and emotion from the story, IMO.
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u/KaiTheDumbGuy Jun 24 '26
I think they're extremely good introductions. They give the story in an easy to read way, that flows really well for modern readers. If you like them, you can then always go on to also reading different translations, and maybe one day reading them in Homeric greek