Emily Wilson

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468 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 1 Aug

Emily Wilson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Fresh Air · ‘Odyssey’ translator Emily Wilson: Nolan should've hired a screenwriter · 29 Jul 2026 podcast

The recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all.

The blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the sun, and the sun god blotted out the day of their return.

Launch out on his story, muse, daunter of Zeus.

Start from where you will.

Sing for our time, too.

So I think there are lots of very interesting choices, and I'll just pick up on a couple.

One is the choice to repeat the word sing.

When the original verb in the start of the Odyssey, in contrast to the Iliad, where the verb invoking the muse is sing, aida, in the Odyssey it's tel, it's epo, en nepeh.

So it starts in a way at a more casual or a more ordinary level as we're building up towards what is in some ways a more domestic story than that of the Iliad.

So I think there's something quite striking about choosing to translate a tell verb with a sing verb.

So there's a grandiosity to the language.

I also think it's interesting how Fagles very, very often adds in metaphors, idioms, one could say clichés that are common in contemporary American English that don't correspond to idioms or metaphors in the original.

So, for instance, we have...

Twists and turns, time and again, of course, the idea of launching out on the story as if the story is like a boat.

None of those metaphors are there in the original Greek.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with adding in a lot of metaphors.

It's a friendly gesture to the reader.

But I think if you haven't read the original, you may not quite realize how much is Fagel's domesticizing and adding things into

to bring this ancient poem closer to the assumed metaphors and ways of thinking of his 20th century American readership.

Yes, this is the opening lines of the poem.

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