Emily Wilson (classicist)
Emily Rose Caroline Wilson (born 1971) is a British-American classicist, author and translator. She is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018 her translation of Homer's Odyssey became the first by a woman into English verse. Her translation of the Iliad was released in 2023.
Quotes
[edit]Translations
[edit]The Odyssey (2017)
[edit]
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy.
- Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,
they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god
kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,
tell the old story for our modern times.- Book 1, line 1
- I never saw two people so alike
as this boy and Telemachus, the son
of spirited Odysseus, the child
he left behind, a little newborn baby,
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.- Book 4, line 141 (Helen)
- Demeter with the cornrows in her hair.
- Book 5, line 125
- She told her slaves with tidy hair,
"Now listen to me, girls! The gods who live
on Mount Olympus must have wished this man
to come into contact with my godlike people.
Before, he looked so poor and unrefined;
now he is like a god that lives in heaven."- Book 6, line 238
- He ripped them limb by limb to make his meal,
then ate them like a lion on the mountains,
devouring flesh, entrails, and marrow bones,
and leaving nothing. Watching this disaster,
we wept and lifted up our hands in prayer
to Zeus.- Book 9, line 291
- Penelope
decided she must show herself to these
ungentlemanly suitors.- Book 16, line 410
- There never were such bullies as these men,
and they intend us harm.- Book 17, line 587 (Penelope)
- She went up
to her own room. Her muscular, firm hand
picked up the ivory handle of the key—
a hook of bronze.- Book 21, line 7
- Zeus, the god of home owners.
- Book 22, line 335
- "Now I have told the secret trick, the token.
But woman, wife, I do not know if someone—
a man—has cut the olive trunk and moved
my bed, or if it is still safe."
At that,
her heart and body suddenly relaxed.
She recognized the tokens he had shown her.- Book 23, line 202
- They did great wrong,
through their impulsiveness; they skimmed the wealth
of an important man, and disrespected
his wife, believing he would never come.
External links
[edit]
Encyclopedic article on Emily Wilson (classicist) on Wikipedia
