Wednesday, December 10, 2025
A Missing Epithet
Homer, Odyssey 7.40-41 (tr. A.T. Murray, rev. George E. Dimock):
I see that Emily Wilson translates ἐυπλόκαμος as "pigtailed" here. At 5.126 she translates the same adjective, applied to Demeter, as "with cornrows in her hair." Both choices seem grotesque to me.
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...for Athene, the dread goddess, did not allow it...In Dimock's revision, Athena's epithet ἐυπλόκαμος ("with lovely hair, fair-tressed" in the Cambridge Greek Lexicon, "of the beautiful plaited hair" in the Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos) isn't translated. Here is Murray's original translation, before Dimock's revision:
... οὐ γὰρ Ἀθήνη
εἴα ἐυπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεός...
.. for fair-tressed Athene, the dread goddess, would not suffer it...It sometimes feels like revisions introduce as much error as they remove.
I see that Emily Wilson translates ἐυπλόκαμος as "pigtailed" here. At 5.126 she translates the same adjective, applied to Demeter, as "with cornrows in her hair." Both choices seem grotesque to me.
Labels: typographical and other errors
