Last week I got to spend the day with two fellow translators of Homer: Caroline Alexander and Richard Whitaker. Many thanks to David van Schoor and the Center for Hellenic Studies for organizing. It was such a joy to meet them both!

In my British childhood I never dreamed I would one day get to live among these majestic beings.

My essay collection focused on ancient literature and translation will be available for pre-order in the UK in October.

This beautiful new metrical verse translation of the Aeneid, by Scott McGill and Susannah Wright, with introduction by me, will be available in August. You can pre-order now!

The Norton Library edition of my translation of the Iliad, with stylish red cover, is now available. It has complete text, maps, notes, introduction and translator's note, and it's yours for under $10 (as are many other tempting Norton Library volumes). wwnorton.com/books/978132...

I saw three deer in Philadelphia today – a sign blessings from Artemis, goddess of environmental protections and women's reproductive health. I taught Iphigenia in Aulis yesterday, a great play about political chaos and its terrible human costs. The Cacoyannis movie: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jD-...

The paperback of my Iliad translation will be out tomorrow, August 6th 2024, and it's already available in some indie bookstores (pic from Napa Valley, with other tempting books). Some reviews here: www.emilyrcwilson.com/the-iliad-se...

Adding the Rodney Merrill translation, 2009, in stressed dactylic hexameter (contrast Lattimore, which is not in any kind of hexameter). Merrill's version is a virtuosic technical achievement, with certain audible costs.

Wilson (2023, regular iambic pentameter, echoing the regular meter of the original) - I wanted alliteration, rhythm, energy, clarity, as per the Gk. To get it in English, sometimes I use more strong finite verbs: e.g., "when air is windless" (νήνεμος) as "no wind moves the air".

Caroline Alexander (2015, unmetrical long lines) bravely tries to echo Gk word order even when it's weird English ("stars about the bright moon/ shine conspicuous"), tho' sometimes her word order is weird in ways unparalleled by the Greek ("are shown,/ and valleys").

Lombardo (1997, unmetrical) sets the similes off in italics, adds many metaphors ("sharp", "falls", "shears") and skips a lot ("hills" and "air" have no epithet, the shepherd has no heart). Skips the explicit point of comparison, which is number. "Moonglow" is a fun invention.

Fagles (1990, unmetrical short lines) borrows the "moon's brilliance" (not brilliant moon) from Lattimore, & adds specificity ("hundreds strong" for "many"). "Spirits soared" is imho cliché (the Gk has no soaring). "Boundless bright air" is a lovely expansion on the Greek.

Richmond Lattimore (1951, unmetrical long lines) makes the shining moon (φαεινὴν ἀμφὶ σελήνην) into "the moon's shining", uses "spills" not "breaks" for ὑπερράγη, and adds a purpose: the light is there "to" cheer up the shepherd. All nice inventive choices. Not literal.

Alexander Pope's version in rhyming couplets is characteristically inventive and expansive, adding colors (silver, yellow, azure, blue), plus planets, uplifting language ("a flood of glory"), and multiplying Homer's one shepherd to a whole bunch of hardworking "swains".

George Chapman's version, in rhyming fourteeners, is characteristically lively: he makes the brows of the hills "thrust up themselves" to be seen, and the valleys are little show-offs that "joy" at the attention; the landscape is more passively illuminated in the Greek.

The Greek has beautiful alliteration (φαεινὴν...φαίνετ᾽...ἔφανεν), underscoring the theme of revelation and brightness, and there's something wonderfully startling about the appearance of the watcher, the shepherd, as the last word: our gaze flips around at the end.

There's paywall so here are some screenshots of a few bits..