Then Aeneas would have struck [Achilles] as he rushed at him
With a stone in the helmet or shield, which would have projected him from ruin,
But Peleus’s son would have robbed him of his life with his sword near at hand—
If Poseidon the earth-shaker had not sharply noticed it all.
Immediately, he spoke this speak among the immortal gods:
“Shit! Truly, I have grief for great-hearted Aeneas
Who soon will go to Hades overcome by Peleus’ son,
All because he listened to the words of far-shooting Apollo,
The fool, that god will not be of any use against harsh ruin.
But why should this guy who isn’t at fault suffer grief now
Without any reason because of other people’s pain when he always
Gave cherished gifts to the gods who hold the wide sky.
But come on, let’s lead him away from death
So that Kronos’ son won’t get enraged somehow if Achilles
Kills him. It is his fate to escape
So that the race of Dardanos won’t go seedless and erased,
Dardanos whom the son of Kronos loved beyond all his children
Who were born to him from mortal women.
Kronos’ son has already turned against Priam’s offspring.
Now, mighty Aeneas will be lord over the Trojans
Along with the children of his children who will be born later on.”
“Some people say that [the children of Aeneas live on] through the Romans, which the poet knew from the oracles of the Sibyl, while others claim that the Aiolians expelled the descendants of Aeneas. But those who claim that Aphrodite devised the Trojan War because she knew this are wrong”
Editor’s Note: This is the third of a four-part essay on reception of minoritized translators of Classical Epic Poetry by Imaan Ansari.
The question of race is ever-present in the Classics and is certainly applicable to the scene of the enslaved women that Emily Wilson points out within the Odyssey. There is a constant distinction between suitors and herders throughout the Odyssey and within ancient social strata. The suitors are the men who attempt to pursue Penelope while he is away. Jackie Murray, in “Racecraft in the Odyssey,” defines the herders to be a “group socially constructed as the racial opposites of the heroes.”[1]
This idea of “proto-racism” that Murray picks up on highlights the fact that “otherness” in terms of ethnic and cultural differences in ancient Greece differentiated “races,” however, enslaved people generally shared the same skin color as their enslavers.[2] Murray goes on to say that “Heroes treat the herders as having alienated humanity.”[3] Race as justification for dehumanization, segregation, maltreatment, and violence is a common theme throughout history, from which the Classics are by no means exempt. Murray brings up a double standard when Odysseus kills the suitors and the enslaved women.[4] The death of the suitors needed to be masked by a celebration so that a civil war, between Odysseus and other powerful families, would not erupt. Race precluded proximity to power, wealth, and status. The herders did not have the access that the suitors would, so, in the words of Jackie Murray, “they can be murdered without consequence.”[5] Racially charged scenes such as these within the Odyssey planted seeds for modern racism and constructions of race.
Race may affect the way in which Classicists of color frame their scholarship and interaction with Greco-Roman culture, literature, and society. The diversity within translation lies not only in the logic that different translators will choose different words—ultimately producing their respective and unique translations—but also the fact that the choices a translator makes are due to their own judgment, tendencies, and even bias, all of which are affected by lived experiences. In the cases of marginalization and racism, the status of translated Latin and Greek works by scholars of color are less likely to be accepted into the modern literary canon, since these Classicists are often questioned for their motivations to engage with the Classics.
Jhumpa Lahiri, recipient of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is an author, translator, and Classicist of color who now teaches at Princeton University. Lahiri is currently working on a new translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses alongside Yelena Baraz, a professor of Latin literature in Princeton’s Classics Department. Lahiri and Baraz share significant experience in reading, analyzing, and educating others on Classical literature and civilization. They will join Stephanie McCarter as women who have published translations of the Metamorphoses into English.[6] There is also a forthcoming translation of the Metamorphoses by C. Luke Soucy, who labels himself the first biracial person and queer man to translate this epic into English.[7] He subtitles his scholarship of the Metamorphoses as “A New Translation, confronting the sexuality, violence, and politics that so many previous translations have glossed over.”[8] Soucy’s cognizance of the lack of recognition for these themes in translation, coupled with his own experiences of having been marginalized, are among the many reasons that motivate him to illuminate the power dynamics of epic and their relationship to sexuality and proto-racism.
Bust-length Study of the Blind Homer, drawing, Paul Buffet (MET, 2013.1122)
Minoritized translators often grapple with and process personal experiences of marginalization by advocating for an institutional push towards equity and representation in translation. McCarter, in “How (Not) to Translate the Female Body,” surveys different translations of Latin poets to demonstrate the pervasive tendency of translators to oversexualize female characters through the double standard that adds a physical description that is lacking from the original. McCarter begins this essay with a lived experience, a story about her daughter, which opened her own eyes to the way in which certain (especially anatomical) words sexualize women despite lacking a specifically gendered denotation, thereby defining the female body, and the female in general, as “other.”[9] Lahiri, too, frames her piece, “Why Italian?,” on her lived experience of feeling as though she must have a valid reason for her interest in the language.
This preemptive justification—that she must rationalize or even apologize for her engagement with European or Western culture—stems from what the environment around her influenced her to believe: that “no one expected [her] to speak Italian.”[10] Her passion for Italian was reduced to an anomaly because of her ethnicity. Being a woman of Indian descent made her interaction with the Classics too to be “unconventional,” as explored in her book chapter “In Praise of Echo: Reflections on the Meaning of Translation.”[11] Lahiri’s story, as a translator who is cognizant of how her translations are received as well as how she is received, shows that even the most accomplished Classicists are questioned due to factors beside the impressive body of their work alone.
Ultimately, the hierarchical stereotyping between power and race exists within the word and linguistic distinction of “Classic” itself. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the etymology of the word “Classics” back to the Latin word classicus, meaning “of the first class and highest rank of importance.”[12] This definition preserves superiority in studying a “Classic,” whether a well known book or an ancient language, over a non-canonical work. I would take the metaphor of “canonization” further to argue that Western society has canonized Latin and Greek. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines “Classics” and the “Classical” as “of or relating to the ancient Greeks or Romans and their culture.”[13] Merriam Webster also echoes the “recognized value” that Classical institutions hold over those without such name recognition.
Students of underrepresented and underfunded communities, disproportionately those of color, often lack what is thought of as a “Classical” education. Furthermore, Arabic, classical Chinese, and Sanskrit—to name a few—are among the time-honored languages of the east, however, they are rarely encompassed under the umbrella of Classics, with a capital C, that is reserved in European studies for Latin and Greek. Eurocentrism must be challenged in order to prove that Classics is not a “dying” field, simply by virtue of being conventionally, in the modern day, unspoken. Rather than leaving equally influential ancient languages to drown in the rain of modern disdain for the past, the umbrella of what constitutes a “Classic” should welcome the East with open arms. The conception of “Western” Classics is inherently exclusionary to people of color.
I want to close this series of essays by considering another so-called “first” in the translation of ancient epic, one that is lesser discussed. In her translation of the Ramayana, Sattar demonstrates gratitude for the traditional aspect of translation, ushering in the translator into discourse about how their choices compare to those of other translators. Sattar is deeply interested in the relationship between Ancient and Modern Indian society, in which she uses Sanskrit as a vehicle of connection.[14] Translating the currently unspoken into accessible words allows Sattar to engage in a transhistorical conversation. In this, she gestures towards the thesis of Classical reception: since translations must change as time passes, newer translations are continually needed to reflect newer priorities.[15]
Not only does the original work provoke thought and interpretation, but the many translations that writers put forth are their own ‘originals.’ This means that translations spark a conversation and environment around them with a comparable richness to the work from which they originally took inspiration. Every translation brings something to the table, and in Sattar’s view, the table of translation has infinite chairs. Sattar demonstrates optimism by seeing translation as exciting rather than nervewracking. Vulnerability does lie in translation and its reception; the translator must stand by their work and defend the choices that they have made. In no way does Sattar undermine the difficulty of translating an ancient text; instead, she yearns to take on the challenge that is inter-lingual compromise.
Sattar is by no means deterred by the fact that her language receives less representation in mainstream media through the title of a Classical thread. Emily Wilson’s activism too is fueled by the neglect to recognize the personhood of women as equal to that of their male counterparts. When reading the Classics in translation, the stories of the minorities to which the institution has historically paid and even continues to pay a blind eye tend to be silenced further. Prejudice and inequality is certainly present in the canon, made up of an echelon of books penned by elite writers in their respective “Classical” language. The act of translation reminds us of the importance of being intentional and unpacking the origins of the most taken-for-granted, seemingly most mundane words. In turn, the words that society adopts are telling of the people whom society favors. Re-examined answers to the question, “What is a Classic?,” must therefore be articulated at the same time that the question itself must be reformulated.
Imaan Ansari is a high school junior at Trinity School in New York City. Her parents immigrated to the US from India, so her experiences as a woman of color and as a first-generation American influence her passion for investigating and amplifying the contributions of minority groups to the Classics. Imaan has taken Latin for six years. She is also fluent in Hindi and Urdu, and aspires to study Sanskrit. At school, Imaan serves on the Student Senate, fulfilling roles such as Chair of Finance, overseeing the student budget, and Speaker, communicating the Senate’s initiatives to students, faculty, and staff. Imaan is the Editor-in-Chief of Diversion, the Modern Language magazine, and the Editor-in-Chief of Symposium, the Classics publication. She is the President of Classics Club and also leads a free peer Latin tutoring service. Outside of Classics, Imaan enjoys playing golf, as captain of the Varsity team, and has been playing violin in various orchestras for over ten years
[2] Hunt, P. (2015) “Trojan Slaves in Classical Athens,” in Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World, C. Taylor (ed.), K. Vlassopoulos (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 128–154. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198726494.003.0006 (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
[10] Lahiri, J. (2022) “Why Italian?”, in” Translating myself and others. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 9–23.
[11] Lahiri, J. (2022) “In Praise of Echo: Reflections on the Meaning of Translation,” in: Translating Myself and Others. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 44–60.
[12] Simpson, J.A. (1991) ‘classics’, The oxford english dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
[13] ‘classics; classical’ (1989) The new Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc.
[14] Sattar, A. (2017) “Continuities between Ancient and Contemporary India,” Economic and Political Weekly. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44166821 (Accessed: 23 August 2023).
[15] Martindale, C. (1993) Redeeming the text: Latin poetry and the hermeneutics of reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
This is one of a few posts dedicatedto Iliad 20. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
As I mention in the first post on book 20, the larger part of the book is dedicated to the faceoff between Achilles and Aeneas, which is, as the tradition would have it, not their first. The two heroes are well-matched for the clear reason that they both have divine mothers and the less clear reason that they are both subordinate to lesser kings and may be experiencing frustration or displacement thanks to this (see Cramer 2000 and Fenno 2008 on Aeneas’ rage; Nagy 1979 on the episode in general). But this passage also brings into conflict heroes on radically different paths: one of them will die Troy falls; the other will live beyond them, despite his own desires.
It is fair to wonder what this episode brings to the epic. Some have imagined families tracing their lineage back to Aeneas having an undue effect on the formation of the Iliad as we have it. Others have seen thematic ties exploring similar heroes and their place in the universe, as part of epic’s movement towards the mortal world. This encounter certainly primes audiences to think about what kind of man Achilles is in comparison to others and it provides a fine transition to the otherworldly events of Iliad 21 even as it delays the progression of the plot towards Hektor’s death. I suspect it does all of these things while also reflecting on the power of narratives to shape the world and our perspectives on it.
British Museum: Black Figure Amphora, c. 490 BCE
Homer, Iliad 20. 199-258
Aeneas answered him and spoke: Son of Peleus, Don’t expect to frighten me off with words Like I am a little child, son of Peleus. I myself know well How to utter insults and threats. We know each other’s families; we know each other’s parents, Listening to the older famous stories [epea] of mortal beings— But you have never seen my parents with your eyes nor have I seen yours. People say that you are the offspring of blameless Peleus, From fine-haired Thetis the sea-nymph, your mother. But I claim that I am the son of great-hearted Anchises And my mother is Aphrodite. Now one set of parents will mourn their dear child Today. For I don’t think that we will wear out battle Making some kind of distinction from each other with childish words. But if you want, learn these things too, so that you may know my lineage, many men know me indeed.
Cloud-gathering Zeus fathered Dardanos first. He founded Dardanis, since sacred Troy was not yet Populated by mortal people in the plain, But they were inhabiting the foothills of many-ridged Ida. Dardanos fathered a son, king Erikthonios Who became the richest of mortal men. He had three thousand horses pastured in his land, Mares who delighted in their tender foals. The wind Boreas started to long for some of them as they were grazing And he took the form of a dark-haired stallion and laid down beside them. They became pregnant and gave birth to twelve foals. Whenever these offspring would leap over the fertile land, They would fly without breaking the fruit of the grain; But when they went leaping over the wide back of the sea, They used to run on the tops of the waves of the salty-grey. Erikhthonios fathered Trôs, the lord of the Trojans. In turn there were three blameless children born from Tros: Ilos, Assarakos, and divine Ganymede Who was the most beautiful of all mortal human beings. The gods snatched him up to be their wine-bearer Because of his beauty, so he could stay among the immortals. Ilos then fathered a blameless son, Laomedon; Laomedon then fathered Tithonos and Priam and then Lampos and Klutios and Iketon, offshoot of Ares. Assarakos fathered Kapus, and he fathered the child Anchises. Then Anchises fathered me and Priam fathered shining Hektor. I claim to be of this lineage and bloodline. Zeus increases and diminishes the excellence of men However he wishes—for he is mightiest of all.
But come, let’s not say these things any longer, like children Who have stopped in the middle of a violent fight. It is easy for both to hurl out reproaches, To very many that a hundred-benched ship couldn’t bear the burden. The mortal tongue is sharp and has every kind of speech In full supply: the field of words is expansive this way and that. Whatever kind of thing you can say, you can hear that kind of thing too. But why really is it necessary for the two of us to reproach Each other with insults and slander facing one another Like women who are enraged over some heart-consuming strife, Going out into the middle of the street to harangue one another With true things and not. Anger compels them to say these things too.
Don’t try to turn me away from courage with words when I am eager To face you directly with bronze. Come closer now Let’s take a taste of one another with our bronze spears.”
Aeneas’ speech exchange needs to be understood in part through the framework of the kind of speech in which he is engaging, in this case neikos or what scholars have called “flyting”. The term flyting is typically used to apply to a stylized form of boasting, threats, and insults that appear in Northern European heroic poetry (e.g. Beowulf). Richard Martin argues in his 1989 The Language of Heroes that the genre of aggressive speech marked by reflexes of the noun neikos (“strife, conflict”) share a performative and competitive domain with Homeric poetry itself. So dynamic speakers like Achilles, Aeneas, and others who use narratives from the past are creative and generative in a way the Homeric narrator is. As Jon Hesk summarizes (2006), Homeric flyting follows basic rules—such as not undermining one’s own martial prowess—but that the best speakers bend and break the rules, as with any dynamic and creative genre. And it may be a part of the flyting genre to dismiss the flyting genre—the first rule of Flyte club is you have to talk about flyte club.
Other exchanges show some ambivalence about the efficacy of words instead of wounds—consider the exchanges between Tlepolemos and Sarpedon in book 5 as another example of heroic sons bragging about divine parents. But battlefield performances may also be an opportunity for warriors to imagine and even create different ‘worlds’: consider how the similar genealogical narratives provided by Diomedes and Glaukos in Iliad 6 allow the heroes not to fight one another.
Hesk argues, further, that Aeneas’ speech in response to Achilles functions in a way as “anti-flyting” (or, at least, an instance of what he calls “meta-flyting”). Then structure of this speech is built around three basic parts, linked with a repeated complaint about speaking like children, and then expanded into a dismissal of what they are doing by comparing them to women in the street. In these moves, Aeneas casts their shared actions as un-heroic, comparing them to children and women the way Diomedes denigrates Paris when he shoots him in the foot in book 11. Yet, as in that example, the truth of the matter is that the words don’t change the reality: Paris may not have killed Diomedes, but for all the latter’s bluster, he still needs to retreat from battle.
MET 41.162.171, mid 6th Century BCE: Aeneas Carrying Anchises
Aeneas creates a ring structure in his speech that minimizes the language with which he is engaging even as he uses the form to an immediate effect: he calls boastful speech childish twice, then provides a lengthy genealogy that emphasizes his paternal line, not the line of his divine mother, and then closes by questioning the genre again. His genealogy is, as Hesk observes, the most extensive in the Iliad. After delivering it, Aeneas calls the form of the speech childish for a third time, but expands on what he means: he says it is easy to hurl out reproaches and people can say anything they want to say at all. He then shifts to comparing them to women in the street, insulting each other with “true things and not” conceding that they are driven by anger, whatever they say. I have long been intrigued by this speech: I suspect that Aeneas’ emphasis on his paternal genealogy may be aimed at indicating the greater nobility of his family over Achilles’ and his close connection with the city of Troy. As Jon Hesk suggests, Aeneas is responding in part to Achilles’ earlier taunt that he is not Priam’s son.
At the same time, Aeneas’ gesture to the multiplicity of stories available and the willingness of people to say anything, true or false, combined with his emphasis on his mortal genealogy, may downplay both his and Achilles’ divine parentage. After he acknowledges that that people claim are both children of goddesses, Aeneas’ narrative becomes one he presents as genealogical fact, while Achilles’ background is relegated to other peoples’ stories. Ultimately, Aeneas plays the delicate game of criticizing a speech genre even while fully engaging in it. And his speech is memorable and forceful, all the more appropriately since Apollo advised him to meet Achilles in the first place. And, ultimately, as other readers have noted, Achilles’ taunts are proved false by the narrative: Aeneas does not die.
Hesk concludes that Aeneas’ speech “is geared toward the subtle undermining of Achilles as a specific individual in relation to what we know about his character and verbal traits from the rest of the poem” (2006). He builds on some work by Gregory Nagy who has argues that the Iliad admits a different epic tradition into its narrative where Aeneas was a central character (1979, 265-275). When Achilles and Aeneas face each other in battle, there can be no definitive outcome because they are bound by the ‘rules’ of the narrative tradition: Achilles cannot die by Aeneas’ hands and Aeneas must survive to lead the Trojan survivors after the fall of the city. And, yet, the desire to have them meet at all is the fulfillment of the desire for something like a ‘crossover’ episode. This is Superman vs. Batman. No one reasonable believes that the latter could actually defeat the former except under very specific circumstance; and everyone knows that at some point, both of them need to be returned to their own stories.
Again, according to Nagy, a central feature of Aeneas as a character pay have been his ability to craft blame and praise in speech, reflected in his name Aineias, which Nagy links to the word ainos (for praise). In telling a different story about the world, one that makes it focused on mortal genealogy, I suspect that Aeneas may be writing Achilles out of history and imagining a post-heroic world for himself where being a child of a goddess is less important than carrying on a family story.
Much of this makes me reconsider another ‘meta-flyting’ moment in the Iliad and that is when Hektor pauses before facing Achilles and admits he wishes he and Achilles could just talk to each other like young lovers. We may imagine Hektor ruminating over the limits of flyting and the martial performance of speech. His genealogy and story-telling is of little use in the conflict he is about to face. Yet, if they were allowed to speak under different rules, the outcome might be different.
Attic Black-Figure Amphora, ca. 550 BCE, depicting Hermes and Athena to the far left side of Achilles fighting Hektor and Aineas while standing beside the altar of Apollo Thymbraios and over the slain body of Troilus
A Short Bibliography for Iliad 20
Andrews, P. B. S.. “The falls of Troy in Greek tradition.” Greece and Rome, vol. XII, 1965, pp. 28-37. Doi: 10.1017/S0017383500014753
Ballesteros, Bernardo. “On « Gilgamesh » and Homer: Ishtar, Aphrodite and the meaning of a parallel.” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 71, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-21. Doi: 10.1017/S0009838821000513
Beck, Bill. “Harshing Zeus’ μέλω: reassessing the sympathy of Zeus at Iliad 20.21.” American Journal of Philology, vol. 143, no. 3, 2022, pp. 359-384. Doi: 10.1353/ajp.2022.0015
Cramer, David. “The wrath of Aeneas: Iliad 13.455-67 and 20.75-352.” Syllecta classica, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 16-33.
Fenno, Jonathan Brian. “The wrath and vengeance of swift-footed Aeneas in Iliad 13.” Phoenix, vol. 62, no. 1-2, 2008, pp. 145-161.
Hesk, Jon. “Homeric flyting and how to read it: performance and intratext in Iliad 20.83-109 and 20.178-258.” Ramus, vol. 35, no. 1, 2006, pp. 4-28.
Konstan, David. “Homer answers his critics.” Electryone, vol. 3, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-11.
D. Lohmann, Die Komposition der Reden in der Ilias (Berlin 1970).
Martin, Richard P.. The language of heroes : speech and performance in the Iliad. Myth & poetics. Ithaca (N. Y.): Cornell University Pr., 1989.
Pucci, Pietro. “Theology and poetics in the « Iliad ».” Arethusa, vol. 35, no. 1, 2002, pp. 17-34.
Reece, Steve Taylor. “σῶκος ἐριούνιος Ἑρμῆς (Iliad 20. 72): the modification of a traditional formula.” Glotta, vol. 75, no. 1-2, 1999, pp. 85-106.
Smit, Daan W.. “Achilles, Aeneas and the Hittites : a Hittite model for Iliad XX, 191-194 ?.” Talanta , vol. XX-XXI, 1988-1989, pp. 53-64.
P. M. Smith, ‘Aineiadai as patrons of Iliad XX and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, LXXXV. (1981) 17-58.
Wakimoto, Yuka. “Aeneas in and before the « Iliad ».” Journal of Classical Studies, vol. 45, 1997, pp. 28-39.
Editor’s Note: This is the third of a four-part essay on reception of minoritized translators of Classical Epic Poetry by Imaan Ansari.
Sexism emanates from the canon itself, since the notion of “Homer” as more than one author rarely elicits the conversation that the group may include female Hellenists. Furthermore, three especially canonized texts, the Iliad, Aeneid, and Odyssey, all begin with a similar structure in translation: a discussion of a man and a muse. Of course, female characters and their presence in each story deeply impact the course that the narrative takes. For instance, Dido in the Aeneid is a powerful Queen who prolongs Aeneas’ stay in Carthage before he reaches the Western Land, Hesperia. In the Classical world, power is finite. Why does Dido and Aeneas’ relationship usher in both Dido’s downfall and not, immediately, that of Aeneas? Because Aeneas is the one who makes the decisions, and has control, when they are together.
Classicist John L. Moles cannot prove that Dido is morally culpable for having sex with Aeneas since he subjects Dido to more scrutiny and blame than he does Aeneas, and since he fails to acknowledge the ambiguity concerning whether they are married. The example encapsulates how something ambiguous within the ancient text itself is treated using a double standard. Sexism does exist in the text itself in terms of blame and the translator, Moles, perpetuates the point of view of antiquity. According to Moles, Dido commits a misdemeanor by having sex with Aeneas because she knowingly does so out of wedlock.[1]
Moles clarifies that Dido is not at fault for falling in love with Aeneas; however, he places blame on her for how she responds to that love. Moles construes the passage which follows the cave scene to be Vergil’s demonstration of a moral shift in Dido’s mentality, most probably dictated by love.[2] The line of which Dido is the subject, coniugium vocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam (Vergil, Aen. 4.172) describes, to Moles, her fatal flaw. Moles interprets the word culpa as representing Dido’s hamartia.[3] Moles explains that Dido hides the state of Aeneas’ and her relationship by calling it a marriage. Moles believes that the implications of the verb vocat, the act of attributing a name, extend to Dido’s intention to justify her sex with Aeneas by saying that they are married. Moles construes the verb that follows, praetexit, to mean that Dido consciously hides truth even though she herself knows, at some level, that they are not married. By isolating line 172, following the censored cave scene, Moles sees “shamelessness” in Dido, a trope of Greco-Roman tragedy often attributed to the woman in an “emotional entanglement.”[4] Moles aligns himself with Vergil’s word choice of nomine, here being a name that Dido imposes on her relationship with Aeneas, to say that even Vergil saw Dido and Aeneas as unmarried, and that Dido uses the label of marriage to justify sex.
Moles does not attribute equal blame to Aeneas and Dido for the misconduct in the cave (even if we grant his assumption that they are not married). He incorrectly places the entire burden of the culpa on Dido by citing the “illicit nature of her love-making with Aeneas.”[5] Although Aeneas and Dido have sex with each other in the cave, Moles refers to Aeneas as a sort of accomplice in Dido’s illicit activities. Moles makes the assumption that Dido initiated, and roped Aeneas into, sex even in his English sentence structure; the word “her” in the phrase is the English equivalent to a Latin subjective genitive, in conjunction with “love-making.” Aeneas corresponds to a Latin ablative of accompaniment, contextualizing the fact that Dido is the focus of Moles’ blame, since she governs the “love-making” out of which Aeneas stems as almost an afterthought.
Because Vergil leaves out the scene in which his audience understands that Dido and Aeneas have sex, Moles can only speculate about who is more at fault. Moles defaults to the (sexist) point of view that women are deemed “shameless” for having sex (outside of marriage), rather than questioning why women are conventionally blamed (and men are not).[6] Why should women harbor the shame within a relationship, and be regarded as shameless if they act outside of that norm, while the actions of their male counterparts are judged with less scrutiny? Moles describes Dido as “over emotional,” undermining her conversation with Anna, consideration of Sychaeus, and careful deliberation over whether to engage in the relationship in the first place.[7] By calling her “over” an acceptable threshold of emotional expression, Moles imposes a standard on Dido to which he does not hold Aeneas. Of course, this is an article considering Dido’s fatal flaw, yet Moles makes no effort to determine that of Aeneas; just as Dido is the focus of Moles’ article, she is the target of his blame.
Moles dismisses evidence which suggests that Aeneas and Dido are married by imposing his own criteria of what constitutes a “proper” marriage. The first issue with his argument is the word “proper” in and of itself, since Moles bases his definition of marriage on “Roman law and social practice.”[8] Moles uses Aristotle’s analysis of Greek tragedy to understand Vergil’s storyline and attribute a fatal flaw to Dido, but he makes the mistake of applying Roman standards to two people in Carthage, who have sex many years before Rome is established. Of course, under the assumption that the Aeneid is propaganda for the first Roman emperor, Augustus, the text may then be accepted as intentionally anachronistic.[9] There remains a disconnect between Moles’ argument and the chronology of the epic, since, although both Rome and Carthage may overlap in terms of societal norms, Moles invalidates Aeneas and Dido’s marriage with standards that do not yet preside over their kingdoms or daily lives.
Moles also makes the point that a married couple must live together and that Aeneas and Dido are “not yet cohabiting.”[10] However, once Dido enters her bedroom for the last time before committing suicide, she picks up Aeneas’ sword and stares at the bed in which they slept together. The fact that Aeneas left his belongings in Dido’s room demonstrates that he stayed with her for an extended period of time, suggesting that they are at least “more married” than Moles credits them. Moles equates Dido and Aeneas’ relationship to a one-night-stand by remarking that “they have only made love once.”[11] However, Dido’s tears upon seeing the empty bed and Aeneas’ possessions, without his presence, imply that they slept and spent time with each other beyond Moles’ assertion. Moles would actually strengthen his argument by asserting that Dido and Aeneas may have had sex more than once because under his framework, Dido would be even more culpable for repeating illicit affairs. Instead, he speculates on the events in the cave, which Vergil himself does not narrate, thus, Moles stretches Vergil’s intention for the meaning behind his text. The way in which Moles crafts this argument, to demean Dido and suggest that she exclusively exhibits a fatal flaw, demonstrates how he reduces her to a “trope” or a “token” scorned female character.
This idea of a “token” or “the only” female extends into media reception of female translators. Emily Wilson is adamant that she is not the first woman to have translated the Odyssey, so much so that one will encounter that fact in her Twitter bio.[12] Recently, Emily Wilson published her translation of the Iliad, joining Caroline Anderson, another woman to have published a translation of the epic. Emily Wilson is technically the first woman to have translated the Odyssey into English, however, this title of “the first,” tends to minimize both the contributions of women to the Classics and the interactions between women and ancient texts. For instance, Anne le Fèvre Dacier translated the Odyssey into French prose in as early as 1708, but is rarely recognized as “the first female translator or classicist” by Western media, perhaps because she did not write in English.[13]
Wilson’s activism in raising awareness for female translators extends profoundly into the Classical texts that she translates herself, namely, humanizing the enslaved women who sleep with the suitors during the Odyssey. These women are executed by Telemachus at Odysseus’ order (Homer, Od, 22.471-473). The translation of these women from Greek to English perpetuates the brutality and disdain with which they were treated. On International Women’s Day in 2018, Emily Wilson exposed the choices that best-selling male English translations of the Odyssey make about how to render the enslaved women. The wrongdoings and shortcomings of male classicists are often ignored, perhaps because of perceived male domination in the field.
Wilson turned straight to best-selling translated works by authors such as Fagles, Lombardo, and Fitzgerald, all of whom used slurs to describe these women. Wilson embraces alternative knowledge sharing in order to correct these injustices with a wider audience.[14] By choosing Twitter as her platform, she joined a movement of scholars working to demystify Classics as a field—one that younger generations and marginalized groups can, in fact, access. This mission is in keeping with Wilson’s attitude to raise awareness for issues in the Classics, such as gender inequality, in tandem with extending appreciation and involvement in Classical literature to youth. She holds herself and other translators by demonstrating that translation and identity are inextricably interwoven.
The New Yorker presents Wilson as risking her reputation in order to give voice to a more important movement that is women’s rights in the Classics. Dan Chiasson, the contributor of this piece, points out that some of the men whom Wilson critiques cannot respond as they have since passed away. For instance, ten years prior to the publication of her Twitter thread, Robert Fagles died. Fagles, arguably but according to Chiasson, is the classicist whom Wilson most directly calls out. Returning to the scene of the hanged slave women, Wilson believes Fagles to have conflated the death of these women to a forgettable, inconsequential event; Fagles presented what Wilson calls a “childish half-rhyme” between the words “cozy… grisly” to describe the circumstances and appearances of the enslaved women.[16] The mentality of blame the victim–or, at least, disregard the victim–is exacerbated here. Wilson acknowledges the dilemma posed by the heroism and homecoming of Odysseus; certain translators take it upon themselves to regard Odysseus as the focus, protagonist, and essence of the entire Odyssey, however, such a view minimizes the presence of other characters. For example, since Odysseus requests that the enslaved women be hanged, Telemachus obliges. The personhood of these women gets lost, not only in translation, but within the scene itself.
Classical reception makes it deeply vital for translators to have the implications of their words in mind, since their audience is different from that of the original canonized work, intended to be received by, in the case of the Odyssey, a more patriarchal society. It is imperative today that translators understand the platform that they are given: to relay words of the past into the framework of the now. The social justice, inclusivity, and awareness for which Wilson campaigns and champions in translation need institutional recognition.
Imaan Ansari is a high school junior at Trinity School in New York City. Her parents immigrated to the US from India, so her experiences as a woman of color and as a first-generation American influence her passion for investigating and amplifying the contributions of minority groups to the Classics. Imaan has taken Latin for six years. She is also fluent in Hindi and Urdu, and aspires to study Sanskrit. At school, Imaan serves on the Student Senate, fulfilling roles such as Chair of Finance, overseeing the student budget, and Speaker, communicating the Senate’s initiatives to students, faculty, and staff. Imaan is the Editor-in-Chief of Diversion, the Modern Language magazine, and the Editor-in-Chief of Symposium, the Classics publication. She is the President of Classics Club and also leads a free peer Latin tutoring service. Outside of Classics, Imaan enjoys playing golf, as captain of the Varsity team, and has been playing violin in various orchestras for over ten years
Cicero (pro lege Manilia. C. 4) speaks of Ecbatana, as the royal seat of Mithridates. I suppose it is not necessary to prove, that Ecbatana was the Capital of Media, or that Media was° never a part of that prince’s empire. Tully was probably but an indifferent Geographer, and the celebrated name of Ecbatana, sounded extremely well. A lesson for Criticks!
“My next publication was an accidental sally of love and resentment; of my reverence for modest genius, and my aversion for insolent pedantry. The sixth book of the Aeneid is the most pleasing and perfect composition of Latin poetry. The descent of Aeneas and the Sibyl to the infernal regions, to the world of spirits, expands an awful and boundless prospect, from the nocturnal gloom of the Cumaean grot,
Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,
to the meridian brightness of the Elysian fields;
Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit
Purpureo—
from the dreams of simple Nature, to the dreams, alas! of Egyptian theology, and the philosophy of the Greeks. But the final dismission of the hero through the ivory gate, whence
Falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes,
seems to dissolve the whole enchantment, and leaves the reader in a state of cold and anxious scepticism. This most lame and impotent conclusion has been variously imputed to the taste or irreligion of Virgil; but, according to the more elaborate interpretation of Bishop Warburton, the descent to hell is not a false, but a mimic scene; which represents the initiation of Aeneas, in the character of a law-giver, to the Eleusinian mysteries. This hypothesis, a singular chapter in the Divine Legation of Moses, had been admitted by many as true; it was praised by all as ingenious; nor had it been exposed, in a space of thirty years, to a fair and critical discussion. The learning and the abilities of the author had raised him to a just eminence; but he reigned the dictator and tyrant of the world of literature. The real merit of Warburton was degraded by the pride and presumption with which he pronounced his infallible decrees; in his polemic writings he lashed his antagonists without mercy or moderation; and his servile flatterers, (see the base and malignant Essay on the Delicacy of Friendship,) exalting the master critic far above Aristotle and Longinus, assaulted every modest dissenter who refused to consult the oracle, and to adore the idol. In a land of liberty, such despotism must provoke a general opposition, and the zeal of opposition is seldom candid or impartial.
A late professor of Oxford, (Dr. Lowth,) in a pointed and polished epistle, (Aug. 31, 1765,) defended himself, and attacked the Bishop; and, whatsoever might be the merits of an insignificant controversy, his victory was clearly established by the silent confusion of Warburton and his slaves. I too, without any private offence, was ambitious of breaking a lance against the giant’s shield; and in the beginning of the year 1770, my Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the Aeneid were sent, without my name, to the press. In this short Essay, my first English publication, I aimed my strokes against the person and the hypothesis of Bishop Warburton. I proved, at least to my own satisfaction, that the ancient lawgivers did not invent the mysteries, and that Aeneas was never invested with the office of lawgiver: that there is not any argument, any circumstance, which can melt a fable into allegory, or remove the scene from the Lake Avernus to the Temple of Ceres: that such a wild supposition is equally injurious to the poet and the man: that if Virgil was not initiated he could not, if he were, he would not, reveal the secrets of the initiation: that the anathema of Horace (vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit, &c.) at once attests his own ignorance and the innocence of his friend.
As the Bishop of Gloucester and his party maintained a discreet silence, my critical disquisition was soon lost among the pamphlets of the day; but the public coldness was overbalanced to my feelings by the weighty approbation of the last and best editor of Virgil, Professor Heyne of Gottingen, who acquiesces in my confutation, and styles the unknown author, doctus – – – et elegantissimus Britannus. But I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing the favourable judgment of Mr. Hayley, himself a poet and a scholar ‘An intricate hypothesis, twisted into a long and laboured chain of quotation and argument, the Dissertation on the Sixth Book of Virgil, remained some time unrefuted. – – – At length, a superior, but anonymous, critic arose, who, in one of the most judicious and spirited essays that our nation has produced, on a point of classical literature, completely overturned this ill-founded edifice, and exposed the arrogance and futility of its assuming architect.’ He even condescends to justify an acrimony of style, which had been gently blamed by the more unbiassed German; ‘Paullo acrius quam velis – – – perstrinxit.’ But I cannot forgive myself the contemptuous treatment of a span who, with all his faults, was entitled to my esteem; and I can less forgive, in a personal attack, the cowardly concealment of my name and character.”
This post is a basic introduction to readingIliad 20. Here is a link to the overview of Iliad 19and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
Book 20 is both about ending end extending various layers of suspense that have drawn the epic’s plot taut since the beginning: it finally sees Achilles’ return to battle (postponed since book 1 and since the death of Patroklos in book 6) and also the initiation of redirecting his rage towards Hektor. In the local context of the epic’s final third, it also ends the waiting that commenced at the beginning of book 18 when the news of Patroklos’ demise found Achilles. However, this book also pulls out all the stops to delay the consummation of Achilles’ rage in the death of Hektor, an event foretold by Zeus himself in book 15. Zeus starts this book with a divine assembly, authorizing the gods to intervene in the battle as they will and features as a central episode the match-up of Aeneas and Achilles. The former almost dies but is rescued by Poseidon. Just as Achilles is about to meet Hektor, Apollo delays their meeting and Achilles slaughters indiscriminately.
Books 20 and 21 are really a complementary pair moving Achilles and the audience through various heroic battle motifs: The first book matches him against another famous heroic tradition while the second is more defuse, taking Achilles out of the more familiar into the realm of theomachy. Each of these movements adds something to the themes I have outlined in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions. Among these, however, I think book 20 speaks most directly to narrative traditions, Gods and humans, and heroism.
Zeus on throne, accompanied by a raven. Laconian kylix, around 530 BC. The Archaeological Museum of Olympia. K 1292.
Zeus’ speech to open book 20 redraws the boundaries for the gods on the field. It reverses his earlier prohibition against divine interference in books 4, 8 and 15, and intentionally sends the gods to delay Achilles’ advance. In addition to manipulating the plot, as Zeus does earlier, this passage also has some curious reflections on divine interest in human beings and the limits of fate.
“So they were gathered in Zeus’ home. Not even the earth-shaker Disobeyed the goddess’s summons. But he came from the sea And sat among them in the middle. He asked about Zeus’ plan “Why have you called us to assembly, god of lightning? Are you really contemplating something about the Trojans and Achaeans? Now the battle and the war ranges closest between them.” In answering, cloud-gathering Zeus addressed him.
“Earth-shaker, you know the plan in my thoughts, the reasons why I have gathered you. These people concern me, even though they are about to die. So I will remain here myself, seated on the ridge of Olympos, This place from where I will take some pleasure watching. But the rest of you Go until you arrive among the Trojans and the Achaeans And help both sides in whatever way your mind inclines. For if Achilles fights alone against the Trojans, Well, they will not withstand the swift-footed son of Peleus for long. Even before they used to shrink back in fear when they saw him— And now when his heart is awfully enraged over his friend, I fear that he will breach the wall beyond what is fated.”
A few things jump out at me from this exchange. First, notice the change in Poseidon as a character. Where he was much more of an active participant in book 13 and a complainant of sort in books 7 and 15, here he is less of an agent and more of a mere character. Of course, this changes almost as soon as he enters the fray. Up to that point, however, he arrives here as something of a secondary internal audience. By this I mean he asks the very question that the external audience may be asking: what exactly is the plan for the rest of the epic? Zeus is shifting from an internal audience guiding our viewing in book 19, to an author of the narrative for a brief moment, before he recedes again to watch the action unfold. When Poseidon asks him what is going to happen, he elicits a response that helps to shape the narrative to come and provide more information.
The language used in this passage may recall the opening of the poem (“the proem”). At the very least the repeated invocation of “the plan” (βουλήν x2;) plus the mention of people dying (ὀλλύμενοί) echo the opening concerns of the proem that make it clear that Achilles’ rage is killing myriad Achaeans as part of Zeus’ plan. ‘Re-tuning’ is appropriate here especially because Achilles’ anger is specifically invoked as not just in action but in danger of subverting the action away from where Zeus wants it to go.
This danger of subverting Zeus’ will brings me to the second point I find interesting in Zeus’ speech. When Zeus says “they are a concern to me even though they are dying”, many interpreters have taken to mean that it is because he cares about people. (Indeed, the scholia assume that this is part of his role as the “father of men and gods”). But what this concern really means is unclear. I think that μέλουσί μοι ὀλλύμενοί περ not a concern because of sympathy for their fates—all men die and Zeus seems more or less ok with myriad deaths—but because of the danger it may represent to his plans, as Bill Beck persuasively argues, and the course of fate in the larger Trojan war narrative.
Greek Bronze Statuette of Zeus Casting Thunderbolt, from Sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona, c. 470 BC
This connects in part to a third aspect of this speech that is important, which is the final concern Zeus expresses, that Achilles’ rage is such that it might result in actions that are “beyond fate” (ὑπέρμορον) points both to Achilles’ actions in general and may anticipate the subsequent endangerment and rescue of Aeneas. Although there is some debate in the textual tradition about this phrase—others have suggested that the correct reading is ὑπέρβιον, “super violently”—it seems sound to me that Zeus would use this phrase here: his concern is with any action that may disrupt the basic facts of the Trojan War narrative as they have to be. Achilles cannot enter Troy because everyone knows that he will die outside of it.
Other events that were labeled as “beyond fate” include the Achaean return home in book 2 (which would have ended the war), the breaching of the walls in 21.517, human beings suffering beyond their measure because of stupidity (Od. 1.34), Aigisthus marrying Klytemnestra (Od. 1.35), or Odysseus dying without getting home (Od. 5.436). Of these, the Aigisthus case is the hardest, but according to Zeus he was warned by Hermes not to do what he did. So, in all these cases, the phrase huper moron seems to indicate a transgression against the outline of a story or the rules of a story as they have been articulated.
David Konstan suggests that “As the internal spectator, Zeus’ delight cues the audience as to how the scene is to be appreciated: this is for fun, not serious like the mortal conflict” (2015, 10) And, in part, Pietro Pucci supports this when he draws attention to Hera and Athena “delighting” in the conflict in book 4. As Pucci writes, “terpein is also the verb for the enjoyment derived from poetry, and it resonates even in the name of the Odyssean bard Phemius Terpsiades” (23). When it comes to the passage in book 24, Pucci notes a common reading: “Critics have tried to reduce Zeus’s cynicism by an appropriate reading: it has been suggested that he is getting pleasure mainly from watching the fighting gods, as is stated explicitly at 21.388–90, and it has been noted that Zeus in our passage at line 21 says: “I am concerned with them, though they perish.” Pucci goes on to argue that the pleasure in part derives from the completion of Zeus’ plan to end the race of heroes.
I think there may be more to this, however. In the Odyssey we find an interesting relationship between pleasure and grief and storytelling. In book 19, Penelope describes herself as spending her days taking pleasure in mourning (ἤματα μὲν γὰρ τέρπομ’ ὀδυρομένη γοόωσα, 19.513) and she and Odysseus take pleasure in telling each other stories (τερπέσθην μύθοισι, πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἐνέποντες, 23.301). While Eumaios invites Odysseus to take pleasure in telling each other their past tales (Od. 15.398–401):
“Let us take pleasure in calling to mind each other’s terrible pains while we drink and dine in my home. For a man may even find pleasure among pains when he has suffered many and gone through much.”
As I argue in my book on the Odyssey, The Many Minded Man, this pleasure comes from knowing a tale has ended, from resolving the suspense, and finding the end of something the way we often cannot in real life (2020, 247-249). In book 19, the Achaean kings try to get Achilles to feel some pleasure, but they fail (19.312-313) and I think it is because he is torn between what he needs to do (wait), what he wants to do (kill Hektor), and the impossibility of these actions addressing his real pain. Here, I think we can imagine that Zeus takes pleasure in the narrative unfolding because he is moving it toward a definitive end, he knows what that end is, and it is a fulfillment of the plan he has had all along. If we, as the external audience watching Zeus watching the action feel pleasure too, it may be from the poem reaching its long anticipated denouement, even as it may also have to do with the vicarious experience of violence, death, and release.
What does the confrontation between Achilles and Aeneas add to our understanding of the Iliad?
Why does Zeus let the gods run wild in book 20?
How does book 20 anticipate the battle between Achilles and Hektor?
Heracles dressed in a lion skin comes to the seated Zeus and Hera. Archaic sculpture from the temple. The (old) Acropolis Museum.
A Short Bibliography for Iliad 20
Ballesteros, Bernardo. “On « Gilgamesh » and Homer: Ishtar, Aphrodite and the meaning of a parallel.” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 71, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-21. Doi: 10.1017/S0009838821000513
Beck, Bill. “Harshing Zeus’ μέλω: reassessing the sympathy of Zeus at Iliad 20.21.” American Journal of Philology, vol. 143, no. 3, 2022, pp. 359-384. Doi: 10.1353/ajp.2022.0015
Cramer, David. “The wrath of Aeneas: Iliad 13.455-67 and 20.75-352.” Syllecta classica, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 16-33.
Fenno, Jonathan Brian. “The wrath and vengeance of swift-footed Aeneas in Iliad 13.” Phoenix, vol. 62, no. 1-2, 2008, pp. 145-161.
Hesk, Jon. “Homeric flyting and how to read it: performance and intratext in Iliad 20.83-109 and 20.178-258.” Ramus, vol. 35, no. 1, 2006, pp. 4-28.
Konstan, David. “Homer answers his critics.” Electryone, vol. 3, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-11.
Pucci, Pietro. “Theology and poetics in the « Iliad ».” Arethusa, vol. 35, no. 1, 2002, pp. 17-34.
Reece, Steve Taylor. “σῶκος ἐριούνιος Ἑρμῆς (Iliad 20. 72): the modification of a traditional formula.” Glotta, vol. 75, no. 1-2, 1999, pp. 85-106.
Smit, Daan W.. “Achilles, Aeneas and the Hittites : a Hittite model for Iliad XX, 191-194 ?.” Talanta , vol. XX-XXI, 1988-1989, pp. 53-64.
Wakimoto, Yuka. “Aeneas in and before the « Iliad ».” Journal of Classical Studies, vol. 45, 1997, pp. 28-39.
Edward John Trelawney, Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author (Chp. 9):
Shelley was in high glee, and full of fun, as he generally was after these “distractions,” as he called them. The fact was his excessive mental labor impeded, if it did not paralyze, his bodily functions. When his mind was fixed on a subject, his mental powers were strained to the utmost. If not writing or sleeping, he was reading; he read whilst eating, walking, or traveling – the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning – not the ephemeral literature of the day, which requires little or no thought, but the works of the old sages, metaphysicians, logicians, and philosophers, of the Grecian and Roman poets, and of modern scientific men, so that anything that could divert or relax his overstrained brain was of the utmost benefit to him. Now he talked of nothing but ships, sailors, and the sea; and although he agreed with Johnson that a man who made a pun would pick a pocket, yet he made several in Greek, which he at least thought good, for he shrieked with laughter as he uttered them. Fearing his phil-Hellenism would end by making him serious, as it always did, I brought his mind back by repeating some lines of Sedley’s, beginning
Love still has something of the sea
From whence his mother rose.
During the rest of our drive we had nothing but sea yarns. He regretted having wasted his life in Greek and Latin, instead of learning the useful arts of swimming and sailoring.
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a four-part essay on reception of minoritized translators of Classical Epic Poetry by Imaan Ansari.
Who is allowed to make mistakes and deviate from a distilled model of translation? How does one straddle faithfulness to an ancient text and response to or from a modern audience? Where is the balance that a translator must actualize between the pull of the original author and their own, if any, creative license? Walter Benjamin’s 1923 essay “The Translator’s Task” has long been the canonical text against which answers to these questions are measured.[1]
For instance, “The Translator’s Task” has served as a theoretical blueprint for how a translator should approach balancing both the source and target languages of one’s translation. The difficulty of translation that Benjamin picks up on is balancing both of the languages that are involved in the process.[2] Simply put, leaning towards one language may result in being less faithful to the other. A translation is often thought of as a way of communicating or illuminating a conversation to someone in a second medium if they do not understand or cannot access the first. Benjamin argues that an appeal to the audience is not appropriate for the translator to keep in mind, as it may cloud the integrity of their translation.[3]
The translator’s role is to act as an intermediary between the writer and another reader. Translation in this picture becomes a process by which the translator can bridge a gap. Benjamin clarifies that the nuances of language make it impossible for a translation to line up perfectly with its original.[4] Although a translation may demonstrate a basic resemblance with the source text, the translator often takes creative license.
Benjamin exposes an inherent lack of accuracy that a translation presents even when deeply working to emulate the original. After all, the widely known English versions of “A Translator’s Task” are indeed translations, such as the one I am citing by scholar Steven Randall. Randall renders Benjamin’s words on the relationship between a source text and its translation as the following: “Translation is a form. In order to grasp it, we must go back to the original.”[5] Randall’s word choice is ironic, since through being grandfathered-in by the name of Walter Benjamin, Randall speaks with such authority on the topic of translation, but fails to acknowledge in this sentence that his scholarship on “A Translator’s Task” is translation.
According to Benjamin, the difficulty to be objective lies in the fact that a translator cannot merely parrot the source text but is tasked with choosing words that make it come alive in another language or medium. He writes, “It is clear that a translation, no matter how good, cannot have any significance for the original.”[6] However, this position is paradoxical, given that the translator must pinpoint the first writer’s intention in order to stay true to what both work to connote.
Benjamin believes translation to exist in the “afterlife (Überleben) of the source text,” meaning that there is a separation only in time between the source text and its imminent translations.[7] It is interesting that Benjamin acknowledges the existence of “untranslatability.”[8] Benjamin’s standpoint on translation conflates translation with art.[9] Art fits into the metaphor of untranslatability, as the original artist is often thought to hold the authority and license over their piece, granting them the ability to make and justify their artistic choices. Benjamin, and Randall—through translating “A Translator’s Task”—demonstrate that the translator is also an artist who cultivates their own form of art inspired by an original work.
Benjamin’s original work, titled in German, Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers, demonstrates that translators and their translations are compared with scrutiny to the source texts from which they take inspiration. The literature of the Classics that has been “accepted” into the canon is overwhelmingly written by European male writers. The phrase, “be faithful to the text,” then turns into a burden rather than a rule of thumb, especially for female and translators of color, who are underrepresented.
This “faithfulness” that Benjamin and many other translation theorists call upon is almost always attributed to Robert Fagles. His translations, namely of the Aeneid and the Odyssey, are viewed as classroom standards, although he does not preserve every aspect of what makes these ancient texts “epic”: for example, the meter in which each work was written. Of course, maintaining meter is a stylistic choice, but one with which he is not met with scrutiny for forgoing. On the other hand, Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, translator of a new version of the Aeneid published in 2021, held herself to maintaining the dactylic hexameter through keeping every English line of her translation to six feet.[10] Her faithfulness to the text takes another dimension by bringing the meter back to life, in spoken English.
Image of Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer and her translation of the Aeneid.[11]
Yet, Fagles is the one whom society deems synonymous to translation.. The Los Angeles Times opens a 1991 article, commemorating Fagles’ translation of the Iliad, with the words, “Robert Fagles’ translation of the Iliad opens with rage–the word he’s certain is perfect, the English equivalent he believes Homer would have chosen to launch his epic poem.”[12] The title of this article, “Practicing the Art of Losing Nothing in Translation,” also implies that Fagles is an artist who transcends barriers between languages.
The Los Angeles Times supports a 20th century translator, Robert Fagles, as being on par with Homer. Even the identity of Homer is often debated, as part of the so-called Homeric question.[13] The possibility that the name may stand in for multiple people further plays into the reverence of Fagles and his “Homeric swagger,” a phrase posthumously attributed to him by the New York Times.[14] Such a claim has yet to be made about Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, demonstrating the ways in which male translators have been widely and more readily praised while female translations have been largely ignored.
Imaan Ansari is a high school junior at Trinity School in New York City. Her parents immigrated to the US from India, so her experiences as a woman of color and as a first-generation American influence her passion for investigating and amplifying the contributions of minority groups to the Classics. Imaan has taken Latin for six years. She is also fluent in Hindi and Urdu, and aspires to study Sanskrit. At school, Imaan serves on the Student Senate, fulfilling roles such as Chair of Finance, overseeing the student budget, and Speaker, communicating the Senate’s initiatives to students, faculty, and staff. Imaan is the Editor-in-Chief of Diversion, the Modern Language magazine, and the Editor-in-Chief of Symposium, the Classics publication. She is the President of Classics Club and also leads a free peer Latin tutoring service. Outside of Classics, Imaan enjoys playing golf, as captain of the Varsity team, and has been playing violin in various orchestras for over ten years
notes
[1] Benjamin, W., and Randall, S. (2012) “The Translator’s Task,” in The Translation Studies Reader, L. Venuti (ed.). Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 69–75.
[8] See also Apter, E.S. (2006) “Nothing is Translatable,” in The Translation Zone: A new comparative literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 85–94.
This is one of a few posts dedicatedto Iliad 19. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
Following the political performance of reconciliation in Iliad 19, the narrative turns back to the personal. We see the resumption of mourning for Patroklos and as the epic moves towards Achilles’ return to battle, it starts to foreshadow Achilles’ death. The plot-link between these two movements is Briseis as she moves from Agamemnon’s possession to Achilles’. We—along with the Achaeans—witness Briseis’ surrender and then we get to see her mourn Patroklos.
Homer Iliad 19. 281-302
“Then when Briseis, like golden Aphrodite herself, Saw Patroklos run through with sharp bronze, Poured herself over him while she wailed and ripped At her chest, tender neck, and pretty face with her hands. And while mourning the woman spoke like one of the goddesses:
“Patroklos, you were the dearest to wretched me and I left you alive when I went from your dwelling. And now I find you here dead, leader of the armies, When I return. Troubles are always wresting me from troubles. The husband my father and mother gave me to I watched run through with sharp bronze in front of the city, And then the three brothers my mother bore, Dear siblings, all met their fate on that day. But you would not ever let me weep when swift Achilles Was killing my husband and when he sacked the city of divine Munêtos— No, you used to promise to make me the wedded wife Of divine Achilles, someone he would lead home in his ships to Phthia, where you would light the marriage torches among the Myrmidons. So now I weep for you, dead and gentle forever.” So she spoke, while weeping….
This scene is remarkable for both its contents and its place in the poem. It is the only place in the Iliad where Briseis speaks. The emotion she shows for Patroklos helps in part to prime us for Achilles’ subsequent lament and also to help to further characterize Patroklos to help us to understand the scale of his loss. Briseis’ evocation of his tenderness as an intermediary, as Achilles’ gentler, kinder counterpart both re-centers his concern for others as explored prior to his entry into battle in book 16 and anticipates Achilles’ revelation that he always imagined Patroklos would be the one to live, to care for Achilles’ son, and to return to Peleus in Phthia.
But all of this summary serves to redouble the way the Iliad instrumentalizes Briseis to serve Achilles’ needs and the plot of the Iliad. Indeed, even the way we refer to her is indirect: her name is her father’s name.
“The Poet seems to use their patronymic names and not their personal ones, for other ancient accounts notes that [Chryseis] was named Astynomê and [Briseis] was named Hippodameia.”
Briseis’ story connects to other themes in the epic. As Casey Dué shows in her Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis., Briseis’ lament recalls Andromache’s speech in book 6 and also foreshadows the deaths of Hektor and Achilles.
Briseis and Phoenix (?), red-figure kylix, c. 490 BCE, Louvre (G 152)[1]
There’s some lack of clarity in the Iliad itself about Briseis’ ‘relationship’ with Achilles. It should be clear beyond a doubt that ancient audiences could have assumed that Briseis was subject to sexual violence as a war captive. Her husband, brothers, relatives all died when Achilles sacked her city. Yet some scholars have seen ambiguity here. When the heralds arrive in book 1 to take Briseis to Agamemnon the narrative reads “she went along with them, unwilling, and Achilles sat, apart from his companions, weeping…” ἣ δ’ ἀέκουσ’ ἅμα τοῖσι γυνὴ κίεν· αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς / δακρύσας ἑτάρων ἄφαρ ἕζετο νόσφι λιασθείς, 1.348-139).
Ancient scholars seem less interested in Briseis’ feelings here than in Achilles. A scholion hedges its bets about whether or not Briseis is upset because she just loves Achilles so much or because she acts this way (generically) as a war prize. Here’s the commentary on this scene from the scholia on book 1:
“unwilling”: This is because she loves her man, as her appearance makes clear. As another explanation, this distinguishes her as a war prize and through one phrase the whole nature of her character has been clarified.
“Cried about from his companion”…otherwise this also shows that because he is covetous of honor he is upset about the insult and is deprived of the customary intimacy, but perhaps he also pities the woman being taking away unwillingly. This characterizes him loving extremely.”
Here, the scholia echo the epic in seeing the movement of Briseis as an opportunity to characterize Achilles rather than give any insight into the experience of a woman who ends up suffering even as she becomes the cause of a conflict that brings harms to others. The denial of any agency to Briseis or concern about her experiences differs from the two other primary women in the text—Andromache and Helen—but we may be able to see her treatment as a metonym to help frame the epic’s presentation of those more fully-realized characters. If the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon is relativized as “about a girl” in a way that implies a judgment on the whole Trojan War, then the cumulative impact may be to limit or deny agency to women in general and Helen in specific.
So one question is how we can understand the Briseis’ relationship to Achilles in the epic’s terms. The evidence about their relationship in the poem is mixed as well, but easier to understand if we think about the rhetorical context. Achilles in book 9 claims that Briseis is a “wife fit to my heart” (ἄλοχον θυμαρέα , 9.336) but then at the beginning of book 19 when speaks to Agamemnon wishes that “Artemis had killed her among the ships with an arrow / on that day when I took her after sacking Lurnessos” (τὴν ὄφελ’ ἐν νήεσσι κατακτάμεν ῎Αρτεμις ἰῷ / ἤματι τῷ ὅτ’ ἐγὼν ἑλόμην Λυρνησσὸν ὀλέσσας,19.59-60).
17th Century Tapestry based on Rubens’ “Briseis Returned to Achilles?
Some might suggest that Achilles has changed his mind during the course of the epic, that he has gone from weeping over losing Briseis to wishing she were dead after losing Achilles. However, it seems clear to me that Achilles is rhetorically amplifying his loss (and a scholion agrees, writing “he amplified the insult by calling her his wife and fit to his heart in additino” (ηὔξησε τὴν ὕβριν ἄλοχον αὐτὴν εἰπὼν καὶ θυμαρέα). This claim, however, does not totally undermine a possibility that Achilles is actually fond of Briseis: if he is rhetorically amplifying his loss in book 9, could he not also be rhetorically diminishing his attachment in book 19 in service of his desire to go immediately to war?
It is nearly impossible to disentangle these possibilities—indeed, I think the ambiguity is important for audiences to be able to choose their interpretation of Achilles’ feelings. One note that is useful from the scholia is the recognition that here Achilles calls her a girl (κούρην) here instead of a “prize” (γέρας). The shift in language both assists in connecting this conflict to the larger Trojan War and it also downplays the conflict between Achilles as personal instead of political (καὶ κούρην, οὐ γέρας αὐτὴν καλεῖ). Another scholion adds that Achilles amplifies this because of the death of Patroklos.
In other traditions, like Ovid’s Heroides 3, Briseis is depicted as desperately writing to Achilles for his attention. In the post-classical retelling of the stories after the Iliad, Quintus of Smyrna presents Briseis as leading the mourning for Achilles. The language and motifs Quintus chooses show an integration of themes from the speeches of Andromache in the Iliad. Yet even here, it seems that Briseis is still instrumentalized in service of Achilles’ story.
Quintus, Posthomerica 3.551-573
“Of all the women, Briseis felt the most terrible grief in her heart within, the companion of warring Achilles. She turned over his corpse and tore at her fine skin With both hands and from her delicate chest Bloody bruises rose up from the force of her blows— You might even say it was like blood poured over milk. Yet she still shined even as she mourned in pain And her whole form exuded grace. This is the kind of speech she made while mourning:
“Oh what endless horror I have suffered. Nothing that happened to me before this was so great Not the death of my brothers nor the loss of my country,
Nothing exceeds your death. You were my sacred day And the light of the sun and the gentle life, My hope for good and tireless defense against pain— You were better by far than any gift, than my parents even— You were everything alone for me even though I was enslaved.
You took me as your bedmate and seized me from a slave’s labor. But now? Some other Achaean will take me away in his ships To fertile Sparta or dry and thirsty Argos Where I will again suffer terrible things working away, Apart from you and miserable. I only wish that The earth had covered over me before I saw your death.”
I imagine that in antiquity there were other narrative traditions that engaged with Homer’s women differently, centering their experiences. But we don’t have them. We do have Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls. As a remarkable anonymous essay on Briseis shows (“Just a Girl: Being Briseis”) just how strongly Briseis’ treatment can resonate with audiences today. It is hard for me to imagine that there weren’t similar responses among Homeric audiences over time.
A short bibliography on Briseis
Clark, W. P.. “Iliad IX,336 and the meaning of ἄλοχος in Homer.” Classical Philology, 1940, pp. 188-190.
Dué, Casey. Homeric variations on a lament by Briseis. Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Lanham (Md.): Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
Fantuzzi, Marco. Achilles in love: intertextual studies. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2012.
Fisher, Rachel R.. « Homophrosyne » and women in the « Iliad ». [S. l.]: [s. n.], 2018.
Lambrou, Ioannis L.. “Achilles and Helen and Homer’s telling silence.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 73, no. 5, 2020, pp. 705-728. Doi: 10.1163/1568525X-12342656
Pucci, Pietro. “Antiphonal lament between Achilles and Briseis.”. Colby Quarterly 258-272.
Wright, Ian. “The wife of Achilles.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 69, no. 1, 2016, pp. 113-118. Doi: 10.1163/1568525X-12341949
Emily Wilson and her newly published translation of Homer’s Iliad. 
