Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Modern Expressions in Translations of Ancient Works
Richard Tarrant, in a favorable review of Stephanie McCarter, tr., Ovid, Metamorphoses (New York: Penguin, 2022), in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR 2023.08.39), noted that
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... "gender-fluid" (4.301) is perhaps too redolent of contemporary jargon for ambiguus ...Equally jarring (to my ears at least) is "green berets" in Jeffrey Henderson's translation of Aristophanes, Frogs 1013-1017 (Aeschylus speaking, he = Euripides):
Then just consider what they were like when he took them over from me, noble six-footers and not the civic shirkers, vulgarians, imps, and criminals they are now, but men with an aura of spears, lances, white-crested helmets, green berets, greaves, and seven-ply oxhide hearts.Both τρυφαλείας and πήληκας are Homeric words for helmets. Casques might be suitably archaic for πήληκας.
σκέψαι τοίνυν οἵους αὐτοὺς παρ᾿ ἐμοῦ παρεδέξατο πρῶτον,
εἰ γενναίους καὶ τετραπήχεις, καὶ μὴ διαδρασιπολίτας,
μηδ᾿ ἀγοραίους μηδὲ κοβάλους, ὥσπερ νῦν, μηδὲ πανούργους, 1015
ἀλλὰ πνέοντας δόρυ καὶ λόγχας καὶ λευκολόφους τρυφαλείας
καὶ πήληκας καὶ κνημῖδας καὶ θυμοὺς ἑπταβοείους.
