Odysseus -- among the maidens!
After reading some of the wonderful contemporary translations
of the Odyssey you all have made -- including one where
Telemachus brushes his teeth -- I have decided to get my
hands dirty, too, with a translation. That was "hands" I said.
Anyway, I remember a scene where Odysseus has been washed
ashore naked after a shipwreck and is found by a beautiful
princess and her ladies-in-waiting while they are bathing.
Quite the moment!
Pope and Butler record one moment as follows:
Alexander Pope:
To them the king: "No longer I detain
Your friendly care: retire, ye virgin train!
Retire, while from my wearied limbs I lave
The foul pollution of the briny wave.
Ye gods! since this worn frame refection know,
What scenes have I surveyed of dreadful view!
But, nymphs, recede! sage chastity denies
To raise the blush, or pain the modest eyes."
Samuel Butler
But Ulysses said,
"Young women, please to stand a little on one side that
I may wash the brine from my shoulders and anoint myself
with oil, for it is long enough since my skin has had a
drop of oil upon it. I cannot wash as long as you
all keep standing there. I am ashamed to strip before a
number of good-looking young women."
Allen:
Excuse me, ladies. I hope you don't mind looking
The other way while I stand up out of the water,
To wash off the, uhm, salt.
Come on now, don't just stand there staring,
A little privacy, please.
After all my battles and surviving the shipwreck
I'd like a hot shower and shave.
Some Calvin Kline "Eternity" cologne and lotion...
Say, didn't I mention looking away?
posted by Allen Webb at 7:43 PM
7 Comments:
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Sounds like you have a script in the making if you ask me! There was a show, a satire, that we did in High School, " The Idiot and the Odyssey", and your translation would probably fit right into that scene
I learned how to interpret a writing better than before. Most of the time, if a work seems as if it will be too hard to interpret, i wont even bother to read it. In this assignment, i was able to put my own words to someone eles's and i found this fun to do. I think when students are challenged, but given the opportunity to have fun with an assignement, they tend to do better and understand more of what is going on then if they were to just read the writing. This was both difficult but fun for me.
From writing a translation of my own -- well based on other English translators -- I learned on the one hand how many different ways a translation could be rendered into English. It was not hard to find some words of my own that could translate the piece, yet I could keep playing with it till I could create the effect I wanted. In fact, I posted this blog entry three times before I was satisfied with it. Translating is creative.
I enjoyed this assignment more than I thought I would. Going through several translations in class and comparing them helped to prepare me for it. Once I sat down and looked at a few different translations, I was surprised at how easily I could draw conclusions and then make the passage my own. As Ashley said, it even turned out to be a little bit fun!
When we discussed this assignment in class last week I left the room not looking forward to actually doing it. When I sat down to look at the Odyssey the assignment started to look better. Reading the lines in the Odyssey and thinking about them was actually kind of fun because I realized that it can be interpreted in so many different ways, as we have read a few ways in class. This assignment is great for an English class because you get to be creative and understand more about The Odyssey at the same time.
I feel that this activity helped me understand The Odyssey in a way that I could actually go and retell a short version of those parts of the story that I have really looked at and have tried to analyze.
It was like trying to understand a language such as spanish where I know and can translate the very basic words, yet I do not know what the other half of the text and I have to make out what I do know and guess a little with the rest.
It's funny how using the other translations brought what I first considered unknown to light and I then realized that I did understand what the author was saying when the used extensive description.
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