Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson discussion

This thread is for a discussion of Book 4 of Emily Wilson's translation of Homer's The Odyssey.

I've quite been enjoying this translation, but line 54 "canapés" really jarred me. Canapés? Really? Would be interested to compare with the Greek if anyone has it...

Andrew wrote: "I've quite been enjoying this translation, but like 54 "canapés" really jarred me. Canapés? Really? Would be interested to compare with the Greek if anyone has it..."

Canapés does sound a bit weird, doesn't it? Fitzgerald translates it as "savories."

Tamara wrote... Yes! I've been comparing this translation with Fitzgerald occasionally when I come to a jarring word or phrase.

Another strange one is Eurycleia addresses Penelope as "sweetheart."

Tamara wrote: "Andrew wrote: "I've quite been enjoying this translation, but like 54 "canapés" really jarred me. Canapés? Really? Would be interested to compare with the Greek if anyone has it..."

Canapés does s..."

Peter Green's translation (just published) is "side dishes" and Fagles translates it as "appetizers." Lattimore writes, "addling many good things to it [the bread]."

I just love all these realistic elements of hospitality. Good to have some side dishes after all the meat and wine that get so much emphasis. As Wilson notes in the introduction, rich men and gods favor meat and brew, maybe as much as we like hot dogs at a ball game.

The common homey rituals of cleaning and oiling by slaves or hosts' daughters, bedding down in fleecy blankets, and feasting that Telemachus is getting on his mini-Odyssey add to the sense of what Odysseus is missing from not being home and contrasts nicely with the heroic and tragic perfidies recounted for Telemachus edification.

But overall the plainness and quotidian details in these chapters for me contrasts with the plethora of metaphors and similes in the Iliad. There spears and arrows were hungry for their targets or embarrassed in missing their mark. You really have to look hard for such poetic devices so far in the Odyssey. For example, Telemachus notes after hearing of his father's role with the Trojan Horse: "My father's courage could not save his life,/ even if he had had a heart of iron." He asks Meneleus, "Please do not try to sweeten bitter news/ from pity." Meneleus projects that the suitors will be like fawns in the lion's den and "when the lion comes back/to his own bed, he brings down doom on them". The violation of hospitality encountered by Agamemnon earns this simile: "Aegistheus killed him over dinner,/ just as a person kills an ox at manger." And Penelope's worry over the suitor's plot against Telemachus is characterized by his metaphor: "Her mind was like a lion, caught by humans,/ when they are clustering round him in a circle,/ trying to trap him."

Maybe the fantasy of intervening gods and noble or depraved actions of the humans here need little poetical bumping up for more impact. The chorus of "wine-dark sea" and daily play of rosy-fingered dawn also keep us in the poetical realm without a lot of excess of flowery lingo.

Finished Book 4. Two thoughts: the ancient Greeks could school us when it comes to hospitality, but then, that might be because there were more wanderers and travelers in their day (plus fewer Holiday Inns). In these parts, my fellow New Englanders give strangers a wide berth, unless of course it is a neutral setting (say, an Amtrak train were conversation is struck up).

Remember when every occasion included an extra place setting in case anyone showed up at the door? Thought not.

Second thought: As a teacher, I can see Wilson's translation being oh, so student-friendly. Granted, it won't put Spark Notes or Schmoop out of business, but you know what I mean.

Bonus thought: What is up with female slaves bathing you upon arrival and then sleeking you up with olive oil like you're a side salad or something? I can't decide whether it's curious or kinky.

A couple of things I noticed about Book 4:

Pisistratus is much more mature than Telemachus. He conducts himself well in Menelaus' palace.

Also, I was struck by the contradictions in Helen. She blames Aphrodite for making her "go crazy" when she left Menelaus for Paris. And although she recognizes Odysseus when he comes to Troy disguised as a beggar, she bathes him and promises not to reveal his identity, claiming she was ready to go back to Menelaus by then. But when the Greeks enter Troy in the belly of the horse, she calls out to each man in the voice of his wife--as if trying to trick them into revealing their hiding place.

Either she is a pawn in the hands of the gods, or she is as cunning and manipulative as Odysseus.

Michael wrote: "But overall the plainness and quotidian details in these chapters for me contrasts with the plethora of metaphors and similes in the Iliad. There spears and arrows were hungry for their targets or embarrassed in missing their mark. You really have to look hard for such poetic devices so far in the Odyssey. "

Michael, excellent point re. the contrast in the number of Homeric similes and poetic flights in The Odyssey as compared to The Iliad. I'm interested to see whether the balance shifts later.

Ken wrote: "Finished Book 4. Two thoughts: the ancient Greeks could school us when it comes to hospitality, but then, that might be because there were more wanderers and travelers in their day (plus fewer Holi..."

Ken agreed re. hospitality as a lost art, due in part to cultural and historical changes. Re. travelers being oiled by hosts' daughters and slave girls -- apparently Greek bathing practices involved first having sand or ashes spread over a body, then adding oil and scraping everything off, and then off to the bath waters or steam. Exfoliating BCE style.

Tamara wrote: "A couple of things I noticed about Book 4:

Pisistratus is much more mature than Telemachus. He conducts himself well in Menelaus' palace.

Also, I was struck by the contradictions in Helen. She bl..."

Tamara, I agree with both of your observations. Helen comes across as manipulative -- I think that's emphasized by her decision to drug everyone to prevent tears and rage.

Kris wrote: "Ken wrote: "Finished Book 4. Two thoughts: the ancient Greeks could school us when it comes to hospitality, but then, that might be because there were more wanderers and travelers in their day (plu..."

Interesting. Free spa services. For men only?

Ken wrote: "Interesting. Free spa services. For men only?..."

Absolutely! One of the many advantages men had over women in Greek society.

Kris wrote: ...apparently Greek bathing practices involved first having sand or ashes spread over a body, then adding oil and scraping everything off, and then off to the bath waters or steam. Exfoliating BCE style.

Kris, I always thought it was the other way around. I thought they bathed them first to wash off all the grime. And then they massaged them with oil to smooth the dry skin:

When they had satisfied their eyes with staring,
they went to take a bath with polished tubs.
The slave girls helped them wash and rubbed them down
in olive oil, then dressed them in wool cloaks. (Book 4: 46-49)

I don't know if there is any significance to it, but when Odysseus lands on Scheria in Book 6, he refuses to let the girls bathe him. He opts to bathe himself.

Appetizers... AND imported drugs from Egypt... sounds like a party! Would these bathing rituals also have included a sexual exchange? Or were their other types of slaves for that?

I'm wondering about tricking and binding the sea god, Proteus- and demanding the truth from him. Was he bound in some way to tell the truth? Why would a man who had seen every terror of war believe that a god would owe him the truth?

Re: Proteus... he gave us a pretty cool word (eponym, it'd be) in "protean," which means the ability to change shape or meanings.

Here is the perfect place to insert part of the Guardian review. I’ll have to post the link separately - can’t do two things at once!
Helen enters the poem just at the moment when her husband, Menelaus, has tactlessly made a visitor – young Telemachus – weep. “Shall I conceal my thoughts or speak?” she says. She does not wait for permission, but ploughs on, making clear that, unlike her husband, she has immediately recognised the boy, even though she last saw him “the day the Greeks marched off to Troy, their minds/fixated on the war and violence./ They made my face the cause that hounded them.” This last line is translated by Fagles as “shameless whore that I was”, and by Stephen Mitchell as “bitch that I was”. The Greek is kunopis, a rare word literally meaning dog-face, or dog-eye. There are few contexts in which to see this word in use, but it is applied by Euripides to the Furies, terrifying creatures that “hound” murderers. It does not carry, argues Wilson, the overtones of female sexual destructiveness that are often applied in its translation. And so another small but significant transformation is effected.

Can’t add the link but Kris posted it on our articles page . The review is by Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 12 Dec 2017 and is excellent on the changes Wilson has made to the view of women in her translation.

You make it clear, Lyn, how brilliant a solution Wilson found. Still, no matter that the vicious use of the bitchy appelation is unjustified, it seems Helen is dealing with a lot of insults about perceived blame for the war Hounding makes good use of the dog element, but still a slur. Skipping a bit from face looking like a dogs to some kind of snouty chase like a terrier.

Taking heart the line about Aphrodite bewitching her to fall for Paris, combined with Menelus' happiness to have her back, I'm flad she finds little ways to fight back. The drugging could stand in for expressing potent help, but hard not to feel it creepy.

Michael wrote: "You make it clear, Lyn, how brilliant a solution Wilson found. Still, no matter that the vicious use of the bitchy appelation is unjustified, it seems Helen is dealing with a lot of insults about p..."

We had a discussion in one of the threads on The Iliad about different translators' approach to describing Helen in Book 6 -- same issues with lots of "whores" and "bitches" which are not really close to the Greek. Interestingly, Caroline Alexander's translation came closest to Wilson's solution -- she has Helen refer to herself as a "dog."

And Michael, I agree -- the drugging feels creepy to me, too. I think there are intimations that even though Helen is back with Menelaus, time has moved on, and things have changed. Nothing is permanent, even if it appears so on the surface.

I think the drugging is to make sure Menelaus is incapable of attacking her, because it’s clear she is being deceitful about her reluctance to go to Troy.

Argos is yet a third society for Tel to learn about. It is immensely rich with the palace ornamented in exotic woods and precious metals. IThe rich prairie land supports many horses. The hospitality lacks for nothing. However, Menelaus points the moral that he would have gladly come home more directly and lost fewer comrades to death, but the gods did not allow it.
I agree that faith and the god’s responses do not seem stable in the narrative.

I just read Book 4 yesterday. Ha, I had the same reaction to "canapes" that a few others had. I believe the origin of the word is French and for me has the connotation of elegance which would fit the surroundings, so I bought it.
I have been aware all along of the heavy foreshadowing about the fate of the suitors. It comes up again in Book 4. I am taking this as a particular trope in the Homeric tradition. Anyone have thoughts on that?
I felt this book had the most action of any so far, even it it was recollected action from the Trojan War and Menelaus' journey home.
As far as Helen goes, she came across as mysterious to me with a hint of danger when she gave the drug.

I found this today: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rab.... Emily Wilson defends her decision to use "canape" in her translation!

Judy wrote: "I found this today: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rab.... Emily Wilson defends her decision to use "canape" in her translation!"

That's fascinating. It's interesting to see how active she is on twitter. Thank you for sharing the article.

Judy wrote: "I just read Book 4 yesterday. Judy, you commented on heavy foreshadowing and I have noticed that too. In the past the style turned me away from classical literature, because it seemed so slow and repetitive. This time I see it as a mosaic with little pieces built up over time.

Historygirl wrote: "Judy wrote: "I just read Book 4 yesterday. Judy, you commented on heavy foreshadowing and I have noticed that too. In the past the style turned me away from classical literature, because it seemed ..."

Yes, that is a good way of putting it: "a mosaic with little pieces built up over time."

Ken wrote: "Finished Book 4. Two thoughts: the ancient Greeks could school us when it comes to hospitality..."

Loving your comments, Ken, the serious and humorous ones alike. On your point about how to treat outsiders, Wilson said the following in a recent interview in the Penn Alumni magazine:

I think the openness to somebody who shows up at your door in need—that you should let them in first before you ask questions—it would be nice if there was more of a sense among political leaders that that might be a way to go. I mean, just personally, I sometimes feel the pressure of “How are you doing?” as a greeting, as opposed to “You must need a bath. Let me get you a drink.” You know? The norm of xenia is that you first provide for the person, and then you don’t have an actual substantive conversation until you’re sure they’re feeling okay.

material culture here and back in Pylos interesting, the poet emphasises the wealth of the material objects - the dyed fleeces say, yet at the same time it is a pretty basic material culture - there are no spare beds or even rooms for Telemachus

Kris wrote: "Michael wrote: "And Michael, I agree -- the drugging feels creepy to me, too. I think there are intimations that even though Helen is back with Menelaus, time has moved on, and things have changed. Nothing is permanent, even if it appears so on the surface.."

yes, the Odyssey is an epic in which there is a fair amount of men sitting around crying, but Helen is the only character to police that and impose a limit on it

janet wrote: "My reading of this version keeps bringing me back to consider people's faith and the gods' responses.

The "loyal" Eurycleia has faith: "Pray to Athena, child of Zeus the King. She may save him fr..."

Me too, Janet. As we discussed in The Iliad, they seem like pawns in the hands of the gods, but I'm finding the back-and-forth interesting--what the mortals want from the gods and vice versa.

In this book I noticed Menelaus said, when talking of these massive animal sacrifices, that the gods "always desire obedience." I suppose this is true of many religions. At the core of the sometimes ridiculous, over-the-top requirements is the need to create "an obedient heart" in the followers. A control requirement or a spiritual development requirement, or both.

What's so interesting about this "religion" is the humanness of it. You need the gods help, not for enlightenment or heaven, but so you can go home and enjoy your house and family and food. Canapés (ha!) and wooly blankets and stuff. I'm loving those details.

The details have been striking me too, Kathleen. The material culture seems to shine through Wilson's translation, and connects to so many themes -- a well-ordered household, civilization, homecoming, power, respect for the gods and guests alike. The gendered aspects are also interesting to me -- women weaving, for example.

Hello everyone. I regret I only recently read Emily Wilson's Odyssey so am several years late joining the discussion.

I discovered this group by internet search for fora (see, I still remember enough Latin from 'O' level, passed 1981, to know the plural of Second Declension Neuter Noun like forum!) to discuss the Odyssey and started to post a few of my thoughts hoping someone might read them some day, and 2 ladies in this group have already been kind enough to reply that they have been reading them.

Some unrelated points about this Book 4, which I post as a series of comments to make them easier to read.

Lines 10 - 12, King Menelaus:

'...was welcoming a Spartan bride, Alector's daughter, for his well-loved son, strong Megapenthes, mothered by a slave.'

Megapenthes has evidently been allowed to follow his father's free status, rather than his mother's slave status.

This parallels the false background story Odysseus gives in Book 14, 202 -204, which, while untrue, must have been intended to be plausible:

'...My mother was a slave, bought as a concubine, and yet my father respected me like all his other sons.'

So was it the custom in those days that a free man's child by a slave woman became free? I believe that was not so among the Greeks and Romans in later centuries?

We know that in those days it was acceptable for a married man (Menelaus is of course still married to Helen) to openly keep a slave concubine. (Or at least men thought it was acceptable; it might make their wives angry though, as we know from the back story of Eurycleia in Book 1, 427 - 434.)

We get two contrasting versions of which side Helen really wanted to win in the Trojan War. Helen tells us that Odysseus once adopted the same disguise that he later uses back on Ithaca in order to sneak into Troy as a spy, as a ragged beggar, even beating and bruising himself beforehand to make his disguise convincing.

Helen tells us that she recognized Odysseus and secretly helped him, and (lines 257 - 265):

'On the way back, he used his long, bronze sword to slaughter many Trojans, and he brought useful intelligence to tell the Greeks. The Trojan women keened in grief, but I was glad - by then I wanted to go home. I wished that Aphrodite had not made me go crazy, when she took me from my country, and made me leave the bed I shared with my fine, handsome, clever husband.'

Her above husband Menelaus tactfully does not start an argument with Helen about this at dinner, in front of guests, but hints at lines 269 - 289 that he does not fully believe her flattety, or that she was by then secretly on the side of Menelaus and the Greeks.

Menelaus recalls how, later in the war, when the Greeks were hiding inside the Wooden Horse, Helen tried to help the Trojans, putting both Odysseus' and Menelaus's lives, and the whole Greek plan, at risk, by trying to trick them to reveal their presence inside the Horse, by calling to each of them in their own wife's voice.

So whose side is Helen really on? Possibly no one's but her own. Even if she no longer particularly likes the Trojans, she may still fear the Greeks, as she does not yet know, if the Greeks win, whether Menelaus, will take her back to live as his wife and Queen in his palace again, or execute her as a traitor and adultress.

Helen's comment that she was secretly pleased, while the other women in Troy were bewailing the Trojan men killed by Odysseus, is more plausible, as Helen never shows much concern for the catastrophe she helps to bring on the Trojans, despite living among them for 10 years.

The island of Pharos, off the coast of Egypt, on which Menelaus was stuck at line 355, was later the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, so immense that at night the light of its flaming fires could be seen a long way out at sea. It is the origin of the French word for a Lighthouse, Phare.

Pharos was actually so close to the Egyptian mainland that it ceased to be an island in Ancient times, when the harbour at Alexandria was built out to include it.

Proteus, the shape-shifting ('protean') sea god (lines 382 - 570, about 6 pages) seems interesting. Does anyone know of any other Ancient literature or myths in which he plays a significant part?

Interesting that a few mortal men can temporarily overpower even a god, like Proteus, when Menelaus and a few of his men seize and do not let go of Proteus, although Homer does not explain how they manage to keep their grip when the god transforms himself into water.

There are a number of different sea gods in Homer's World: Poseidon (Neptune) of course; Triton (in modern times featured in the Disney animation The Little Mermaid), Proteus and also Phorcys, mentioned in Book 1 lines 70 - 72 as the maternal grandfather of the Cyclops Polyphemus, and in Book 13 lines 95 - 97 where he is associated with a natural harbour on Ithaca. Then there is the sea goddess Thetis, mother of Achilles.

I do not know if this profusion of deities associated with the sea reflects both the particular importance of sea-faring to the Greeks, whose homeland includes so many islands and peninsulas, and is also so mountainous that land travel was often difficult, but also that the sea was often dangerous and unpredictable. Perhaps it reassured sailors in a storm to have several different gods and godesses who might help them, if the sailors prayed and sacrificed enough.

Thinking about this further, I have several more thoughts, about this Book 4 and, especially, Helen in it, in addition to what I said above a few months ago.

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Helen's Appearances in the Odyssey

This Book 4 is of course Helen's main appearance in the Odyssey; she appears more briefly early in Book 15, when she helps see Telemachus and Peisistratus on their way, giving Telemachus a robe she made with her own hands (Book 15 lines 122 - 130) for his future bride to wear on their wedding day, so Telemachus should 'remember Helen' then.

I assume that chronologically Telemachus's departure in Book 15 takes place the day or two after we see him as guest of Menelaus and Helen in Book 4. However, there are 10 other books in between them because Homer decides at this point to tell the full story of where Odysseus has been all these years and of his return to Ithaca.

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Menelaus' Regrets

I don't know how Helen feels when her husband appears to question if it was worth getting her back by waging the Trojan War, and does not even mention her return to him as a benefit of victory, only the material 'treasure' Menelaus acquired (which will be both war loot and presents from the important people he visited on his extended journey home) in lines 91 - 108.

'...Your fathers have surely told you how much I have suffered...I was parted for many years from all my splendid riches. I wish I had stayed here with just a third of all the treasure I have now acquired, if those who died at Troy, so far away from Argive pastures, were alive and well. I sit here in my palace, mourning all who died, and often weeping. I miss them all, but one man most...Odysseus. His destiny was suffering...' (lines 92 - 107)

Here, as ever, the Greeks see nothing wrong with complaining about their suffering in the War without considering that the suffering they inflicted on the other side must have been even greater.

Menelaus's questioning whether it was really worth fighting the War parallels that of Achilles' ghost in Book 12 in the Underworld, although their circumstances are different, Achilles being dead and Menelaus having survived.

Menelaus's reflections move everyone to tears for what they have lost as a result of the war, whether or not they were personally present during it (Peisistratus lost a brother and Telemachus does not know if he has permanently lost his father); Telemachus cries at 113 - 116 and Helen, Peisistratus and Menelaus himself cry at 184 -188, so it is not just Telemachus being a cry baby.

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EmilyRC Wilson Channel

I have previously mentioned the existence on YouTube of the EmilyRC Wilson (note the position of the space) Channel which consists of the Professor herself reading short extracts from each book of her Odyssey, with 'props' and improvised special effects that are not Hollywood standard, and what even she admits is her 'ham' acting. However, all credit to her, despite being a self-confessed shy introvert, for having the nerve and commitment to popularize her translation in a way that few academic Classicists would, and many would not do so well if they did. Her video for Book 4 is a reading of lines 219 - 265, when Helen secretly drugs the wine to take away grief and then tells the story of Odysseus' secret mission inside Troy during the War. Emily W reads the greater part of this in character as Helen, who she plays as sycophantic and self-interested.

Helen's Insecurity

I have the impression Helen still does not feel fully secure about her acceptance back by Menelaus and the Greeks generally.

If, as Menelaus says, he now spends a lot of time 'mourning all those who died' on the Greek side in the Trojan War 'and often weeping' for them (lines 100 - 101), although not explicitly stated in the text, one can understand how Helen might fear this could easily turn into anger, and even violence, against her, for causing the War and all those deaths by deserting Menelaus and their daughter to adulterously elope with Paris.

Indeed, Peisistratus, who lost a brother he never knew killed in the War, and Telemachus, who does not know if he has permanently lost his own father because of it, might easily blame Helen for that, although they are too polite to do so.

Hence, Helen goes out of her way in her story of Odysseus in disguise in Troy to emphasize: how she helped him, even when this led to Odysseus killing Trojans; her indifference to the grief of the Trojan women thus bereaved; how she had longed to go home to Greece and her praise of 'steadfast', 'brave' and 'smart' (in the American English sense of 'clever') Odysseus and of her 'fine, handsome, clever husband' Menelaus.

By the standards of the time, and what we know of the laws of some of the ancient Greek cities recorded in later centuries, while not always done, it could be lawful and acceptable for a cuckold husband to punish an adulterous wife with death, and Menelaus would have been considered within his rights if he had done so to Helen when he got her back from the Trojans.

According to at least one version of the story, when the Greeks captured Troy, Menelaus sought out Helen intending to kill her, but when he found her she swiftly distracted Menelaus from that plan and turned aside his anger aside by flashing her naked breasts at him. If you are the most beautiful woman in the World, you can get away with things.

In his book 'Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators and War Elephants', a collection of curious facts about the Ancient Romans and Greeks, the author Ryan Garrett says that tourism and a trade in souvenirs grew up under the Roman Empire. A popular destination for wealthy Roman tourists, who knew Homer and had read in Virgil's Aeneid that their distant ancestors were Trojan refugees, was the presumed site of Troy. Perhaps in memory of the above incident, among the souvenirs sold there were pottery casts of one of Helen of Troy's breasts.

Possibly the vulnerability of Helen's position is why Book 4 begins, without apparent protest from Helen, with Menelaus hosting a double wedding for his daughter by Helen, Hermione, and his son by a slave woman, Megapenthes. They appear to be given almost equal honour.

It was probably common and perfectly legal in that society for a married man to openly keep a slave concubine and have children by her as well by his wife. Some wives presumably just accepted this as the way things were. Odysseus' father Laertes' decision not to sleep with his slave Eurycleia when she was young (Book 1, lines 431 - 433) is apparently sufficiently unusual to merit comment and explanation.

However, there is quite a lot of evidence that some wives resented it. To give just a couple of examples, Odysseus' father Laertes' above decision not to have sex with his slave Eurycleia is explained as so as not to annoy his wife. In Aeschylus's play 'Agamemnon', Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra comments scathingly on the presumed sexual relationship between Agamemnon and the captured Trojan woman Cassandra whom her husband has brought back as his slave, and whom she murders alongside her husband.

I wonder if it is a sign of the weakness of Helen's position, and continued need to ingratiate herself with Menelaus, that she goes along with her daughter having to share the limelight at her own wedding with Menelaus's b@st@rd son.

Helen comes close to admitting in lines 262 - 266 that she went willingly with Paris to begin with, although, as is common in Homer, she does not take responsibility for her actions and blames a god for influencing her to do it 'I wished that Aphrodite had not made me go crazy, when she took me from my country, and made me leave my daughter and the bed I shared with my fine, handsome, clever husband.'

A few lines further on, Menelaus tactfully allows his wife the same excuse for trying to get him and others killed, when 'some spirit who desired to glorify the Trojans urged you on' to try to trick the Greeks hidden in the Wooden Horse to give themselves away.

I see this as the 'a god ate my homework' excuse. It may sometimes have been genuinely believed. However, both in the Iliad and the Odyssey, it often seems to be used as a convenient excuse when someone has done something wrong or foolish, to avoid the embarrassment or blame of admitting their error. ('It wasn't my fault. A god made me do it!) It is also a diplomatic way for others to criticize someone's bad or stupid behaviour, yet without criticizing them ('Some god who wished us ill must have put the idea into your head.')

Drugs

After reminiscencing about those who died in the Trojan War, and Odysseus who is still missing from it, has reduced the whole party to tears, and they resolve to try to be more cheerful over dinner, Helen helps the situation by adding powerful calming drugs she got in Egypt to the wine. This is relatively easy to do since, as was customary in those days, the wine is poured into a bowl and mixed with water before being served into individual cups.

We don't know if this is something Helen has been commonly doing to calm Menelaus, and possibly herself, when Menelaus is in the mood, as he has just told us he often is, to weep for the comrades he lost in the Trojan War.

Some have compared this to how in modern times some veterans of the Vietnam, Iraq or Afghan Wars have come back still troubled by their experiences and unable to adapt to civilian life and depend on drugs or alcohol to ease their emotional pain.

I think it plausible that that is what is happening here, although we should be careful about projecting back our contemporary ideas and concerns into the very different societies of the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Homer would not have read scientific papers on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and lived too late to have observed any actual veterans of the Trojan War, although he may well have known, or even have been, a veteran of other wars in the Dark Age Greek World.

I forget whether I have mentioned it before here, but there is a podcast called 'That's Ancient History' by a young Scottish Classicist called Jean Menzies (pronounced 'Mingis' in Scottish). In the first Series, I think it is Episode 3, she interviews a Ph.D student who was researching combat stress in Ancient Athens as portrayed in their literature and medical texts.

He thinks that the particular group of symptoms now labelled Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may be specific to modern Western culture. However, we can talk in more general terms of combat stress as something experienced, possibly in forms specific to their civilisation, by people across the centuries and in different societies.

The drugs Helen uses are described in line 228 as 'magic'. However, the effects of mood altering drugs would likely have seemed to the Greeks of those days, given the limitations of their scientific knowledge, to be either magic or divine possession.

We therefore don't know if Helen's drugs are just a piece of fairy tale invention, like Circe later in the Odyssey magically changing the crew into pigs, or if they portray the effects of an actual drug that may have been used in ancient times.

Possible candidates include extract of ergot and opium, of which the latter is more likely.

We know that a species (claviceps purpurea) of a mould that grows on rye produced hallucinogenic substances, but also other substances that are poisons. Various drugs including LSD have been made from it in modern times. The ancient cult known as the Eleusinian Mysteries guarded their secrets but seem to have found a way to extract the hallucinogen from ergot without the poisons. However, Helen's drug is not described as producing hallucinations.

More likely then is opium, produced from a kind of poppy, if picked at the right stage. In more modern times, morphine and heroin have been created from it, which are several times more powerful, although opium itself is potent. I am no expert on such matters, but unless anyone reading this knows more about the effects of opium, I believe it could as described in lines 222 - 225:

'bring forgetfulness of every evil. Whoever drinks this mixture from the bowl will shed no tears that day, not even if her mother or her father die'.

Opium could be used as an anaesthetic. However, it seems to have been rare and expensive in the Ancient World.

Ryan Garrett, in his 'Naked Statues...' book to which I referred above, points out that there are no recorded cases of recognized opium addiction from the Greco-Roman World, suggesting that few people took it often enough to become addicted, although the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who took some every night, might unknowingly have become an addict.

Opium was not sufficiently widely available for its use to become normal as a painkiller during surgical operations. Consequently, it was said in Roman times that a good surgeon was indifferent to his patients' screams. [Could it be that before the invention of modern anaesthetics, some of those attracted to become surgeons were actually what we would call sadists?]

'Even if soldiers kill her brother or her darling son'

Further to my last Comment about Helen using drugs to take away everyone's grief, two points about the description of the effects of this in Lines 223 - 227:

'Whoever drinks this mixture from the bowl will shed no tears that day, not even if her mother or her father die, nor even if soldiers kill her brother or her darling son with bronze spears before her very eyes.'

1. Examples of Deaths of Close Kin

At first I thought the extreme examples such as 'even if soldiers kill her brother or her darling son with bronze spears before her very eyes' were hyperbole, included for dramatic effect rather than as likely possibilities.

However, then I thought, in the Trojan War that Menelaus, who is present, actually took part in, Helen witnessed and Telemachus and Peisistratus's fathers were there as well, such things did actually occur. Men fighting in the Greek and Trojan armies did witness their own brothers or adult sons dying violently. Women in Troy and other towns standing on the walls anxiously watching the fighting outside, or witnessing the Greeks invade their towns, would quite often have seen their brothers or sons killed with spears.

Indeed, a few lines further on, in lines 257 -260, Helen tells us how, as he slips out of Troy in disguise, Odysseus manages to 'slaughter many [presumably unsuspecting] Trojans', so that 'The Trojan women keened in grief'. Their mourning will be for the loss of men they knew, who for some of them may well have included a brother or an adult son.

Consequently 'even if soldiers kill her brother or her darling son with bronze spears before her very eyes' is an entirely real possibility in the violent World of Homer and his characters.

2. Gender Pronouns

The above quoted passage from Emily Wilson's translation differs from every other English translation I have checked in using female pronouns:

'her mother or her father die...her brother or her darling son...before her very eyes'.

Every other translator uses the male: 'His mother or his father die' etc.

(I don't possess a library of Homeric translations, but one can find many by Googling 'Odyssey Book 4 Translation' and searching on YouTube for 'Odyssey Book 4 Fagles' [or Lattimore, Lombardo, or other translator you have heard of]. If you read French, you can also bring up two or three French translations by searching under 'Odyssee d'Homere Chant 4' [Google doesn't seem to mind if you drop the accents from Odyssée and Homère]).

As you may know, Professor Wilson is the first and I think still the only woman to publish a translation of the Odyssey in English, and only the second to translate the Iliad. (The French speaking World beat us in this respect by 300 years; a lady called Anne Dacier published French translations of the Iliad ('Iliade') in 1699 and of the Odyssey in 1708, both of which, although the style is of course old-fashioned now, were sufficiently respected as to remain the only French translations for the next 150 years.)

However, Emily Wilson has complained that in every interview she gives about her translation, she is always asked how 'being a woman' makes her approach to translation different, when she thinks the task of a translator usually has little to do with being a man or a woman. To consider e.g.: what obscure Ancient Greek words meant in their historical and poetical context; what effect Homer was trying to create; how to reproduce this concisely for a modern English-speaking audience who are not part of Ancient Greek culture and do not share its values or assumptions; and looking closely at the meaning and associations of modern English words the translator might use, do not depend on the translator's sex. There is generally no reason why a male and a female scholar would not reach the same conclusions on questions like this, nor why two female scholars cannot reach different ones.

However, I think that an exception is Professor Wilson's unique decision to make the unnamed person under the effect of the drug, used as an example in lines 223 - 227, female.

I understand that in some respects, the Ancient (and Modern) Greek language pays more attention to gender than modern English does. As in Latin, German and indeed Old English (the form of our language spoken before the Norman Conquest), all nouns in Greek are, often arbitrarily, assigned to Masculine, Feminine or Neuter Genders. Adjectives and pronouns 'agree' with the nouns they describe in gender and 'number' (Singular, Plural and in Ancient Greek also Dual).

However, verbs are inflected for number and 'person' (First Person 'I', Second Person 'You' etc.) only, but not gender. Usually, verbs are used without pronouns. Consequently, the original passage very probably uses verbs in the Third Person Singular, so it could theoretically mean 'if [his, her or its] mother die...' and it is up to the reader to work out which is implied, or whether some other phrase like 'if his or her mother die' or 'if their mother die', using they/their, as one can do in English, to mean a single person of indeterminate sex, rather than the more usual meaning of Third Person Plural.

Of these possibilities, 'Its mother...' is obviously inappropriate, while 'His or her mother...' too cumbersome, since 'his or her' would have to be used four times in the same sentence.

There are potential arguments for either 'his' or 'her' as closer to Homer's likely intention in this case. Arguments for 'his':

- Of the four people to whom Helen administers the drug, all but herself are male, so it makes some sense to imagine the person affected by the drug as a man.

- While Homer does have prominent and sometimes strong willed female characters, like it or not, men were usually more important in his World, so 'if in doubt, assume the masculine', is probably how Homer and his original audience tended to think.

-Again, like it or not, older readers will remember a time when it was widely accepted in English that the male pronouns 'he', 'him' and 'his' could be taken to include the feminine where a statement could apply to either.

On the other hand, a case can also be made for Emily Wilson's choice of 'her':

- Helen herself, who is dispensing the drug, is of course female

- In the story Helen is just about to tell, although the Trojans killed by Odysseus presumably had both male and female relatives, it is only the mourning women that the narrator mentions, so language that emphasizes the feminine may be appropriate.

- Because, even in our modern World, some readers will more
likely assume without thinking about it, where sex is not specified, that male rather than female is implied, by going against that expectation, a translator may hope influence us to be more open minded in future.

However, that last point comes close to making Homer seem to say what we want him to say, rather than what he really said.

Whatever questions remain open about who Homer was and what he thought, we can be sure that he did not read 'The Guardian'.

In my opinion, to help us appreciate the Odyssey as literature or a source of historical information, a translator should try to reflect the ideas in the original as faithfully as it is practical to do. If the translator disagrees with those ideas, they can point that out in a note or commentary, but should not pass their own ideas off as though they were Homer's.

Whether Emily Wilson is right or wrong to use 'her' rather than 'his' in this passage I therefore still do not know. If I were translating it myself I think I would use 'their'. However, thanks to Professor Wilson, any future translator of the Odyssey, whether or not they reach the same conclusion that she did, will consider this point more carefully, and not assume without thinking that the male pronoun applies, as previous translators probably did.

Achaeans / Greeks

In this book, including when Helen tells her story of Odysseus in Troy, the translation sometimes uses the terms 'Greeks' and 'Achaeans' as synonyms, possibly depending on how many syllables this verse translation needs to complete a line.

The original poem will not have used the word 'Greek', as that modern English term is derived from Latin. In later times the Greeks themselves took to calling themselves 'Hellenes' and their country 'Hellas'; a rare term in Homer, where it means a particular district, also called Phthia, in Thessaly in central Greece.

Homer variously uses the terms Achaeans, Danaans or Argives when he wants to refer to the Greeks generally, names that also seem mostly to have been derived from or later to have come to mean a particular part of Greece. In later times 'Achaean' referred to the inhabitants of the northern Peloponese and their dialect of Greek. 'Argive' referred to the city of Argos, but Homer also uses it to mean Greek generally, as at lines 296 - 297:

'Then Argive Helen told her girls to spread beds on the porch'

Helen is not from Argos, so this simply identifies her as Greek.

Some modern translators tend to use 'Achaean', as the customary English form of the most common term in Homer, with the 'ch' pronounced as a guttural 'h' as in Scots 'loch' rather than the 'ch' in cheese, hence it is also sometimes spelled 'Akhaians' in English.

In her Iliad translation, published in 2023, Emily Wilson consistently settles on 'Greeks', in accordance with her policy of using whatever term is most likely to be familiar to modern English readers.