Emily Wilson vs Richmond Lattimore Odyssey Translation

Where the translations differ

TraitEmily WilsonRichmond Lattimore

Translation year20171965

VoiceClear, quick, and contemporaryFormal, exacting, and deliberately repetitive

FormVerse · Iambic pentameter, line-for-lineVerse · Long, Greek-conscious line

RegisterDirect, quick, and contemporaryFormal, repetitive, and close to the text

TradeoffWe lose some of the sweep and ceremony we get from FaglesWe stay close to the Greek structure, but the syntax and long line ask more patience of us

Wilson and Lattimore both impose a firm line, but the resemblance ends there. Wilson fits each Greek line into English pentameter. Lattimore uses a longer, Greek-conscious line that can preserve more syntax and repeated language. Wilson asks how much can move cleanly through a short measure. Lattimore asks how much structure English can bear.

The opening shows the result in miniature. “Complicated” gives us Wilson’s reading of Odysseus immediately. “Man of many ways” leaves more of the epithet unresolved. Corinne Pache thinks Wilson usefully brings out the hero’s moral ambiguity, then warns that the same force can do interpretive work Homer leaves to us. Lattimore makes us do more of it ourselves.

That does not mean Lattimore is neutral. His long measure and syntax are choices with their own effect. David Slavitt finds “many ways” less lively than Fagles, yet praises the line’s ability to place stress and carry Greek syntax into workable English. What feels literal in one feature may feel distant in another.

The Cyclops exchange is relatively close: Wilson’s “Noman” is a slightly stranger non-name than Lattimore’s “Nobody.” The reunion is the clearer test. Wilson’s heart and body relax. Lattimore’s knees and heart go slack, preserving the paired formula rather than translating it into a general physical release.

Choose Wilson if this is your first Odyssey and you want the story to keep moving. Choose Lattimore if you expect to compare passages, track formulas, or consult Greek. Readers who enjoy one may eventually want the other beside it. They reveal opposite kinds of loss.

Three passages, side by side

Show translations

Showing Wilson and Lattimore. Select more to add them to the comparison.

Book 1, opening invocation

The opening lines and polytropos

Emily Wilson 2017 · Verse

Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy, and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools, they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times. Find the beginning.

W. W. Norton & Company first-edition ebook (2018) · Book 1, opening invocation Text checked Jul 15, 2026

Richmond Lattimore 1965 · Verse

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel. Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of, many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea, struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions. Even so he could not save his companions, hard though he strove to; they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness, fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios, the Sun God, and he took away the day of their homecoming. From some point here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak, and begin our story.

What to notice

The poem begins by asking us what kind of man Odysseus is. Wilson calls him “complicated,” Fagles gives him “twists and turns,” Lattimore “many ways,” Mendelsohn “roundabout ways,” and Green and Rieu “resourceful.” Each choice makes a different promise about the hero. Fitzgerald brings the invocation inside the poet with “Sing in me.” Lombardo, Butler, the Pope collaboration, and Chapman lean instead toward cunning, ingenuity, or wisdom. We should listen to the line length too. Before the plot begins, we can already hear compression, swing, and ceremony.

Book 9, the name given to Polyphemus

The Cyclops and the “Nobody” wordplay

Emily Wilson 2017 · Verse

‘Cyclops, you asked my name. I will reveal it; then you must give the gift you promised me, of hospitality. My name is Noman. My family and friends all call me Noman.’ He answered with no pity in his heart, ‘I will eat Noman last; first I will eat the other men. That is my gift to you.’ Then he collapsed, fell on his back, and lay there, his massive neck askew. All-conquering sleep took him. In drunken heaviness, he spewed wine from his throat, and chunks of human flesh.

W. W. Norton & Company first-edition ebook (2018) · Book 9, false-name exchange and aftermath Text checked Jul 15, 2026

Richmond Lattimore 1965 · Verse

“Cyclops, you ask me for my famous name. I will tell you then, but you must give me a guest gift as you have promised. Nobody is my name. My father and mother call me Nobody, as do all the others who are my companions.” So I spoke, and he answered me in pitiless spirit: “Then I will eat Nobody after his friends, and the others I will eat first, and that shall be my guest present to you.” He spoke and slumped away and fell on his back, and lay there with his thick neck crooked over on one side, and sleep who subdues all came on and captured him, and the wine gurgled up from his gullet with gobs of human meat. This was his drunken vomiting.

What to notice

The joke works only if a translator finds an English non-name that holds up in dialogue. Wilson, Lombardo, Butler, and the Pope text give us “Noman.” Fagles, Lattimore, Green, and the revised Rieu use “Nobody.” Fitzgerald makes the disguise visible as “Nohbdy,” Mendelsohn hyphenates “No-One,” and Chapman chooses “No-Man.” Before Polyphemus's neighbors even answer, that one choice tells us whether the trick will feel conversational, antique, conspicuous, or immediate.

Book 23, Penelope's recognition after the bed test

The olive-tree bed reunion

Emily Wilson 2017 · Verse

At that, her heart and body suddenly relaxed. She recognized the tokens he had shown her. She burst out crying and ran straight towards him and threw her arms around him, kissed his face, and said, “Do not be angry at me now, Odysseus! In every other way you are a very understanding man. The gods have made us suffer: they refused to let us stay together and enjoy our youth until we reached the edge of age together.

W. W. Norton & Company first-edition ebook (2018) · Book 23, recognition and reunion after the bed test Text checked Jul 15, 2026

Richmond Lattimore 1965 · Verse

So he spoke, and her knees and the heart within her went slack as she recognized the clear proofs that Odysseus had given; but then she burst into tears and ran straight to him, throwing her arms around the neck of Odysseus, and kissed his head, saying: ‘Do not be angry with me, Odysseus, since, beyond other men, you have the most understanding. The gods granted us misery, in jealousy over the thought that we two, always together, should enjoy our youth, and then come to the threshold of old age.

What to notice

In the Greek, Penelope's knees and heart give way together when she recognizes Odysseus. Each translator decides how literally to keep those two bodily signs and how much psychology to add. Lattimore, Mendelsohn, Green, and Chapman keep both signs close to the surface. Wilson gives us a sudden relaxation, Fagles adds surrender, Fitzgerald says her heart fails, Lombardo says she “finally let go,” and the prose versions describe a breakdown or melting. Pope takes us furthest into eighteenth-century melodrama, with trembling and fainting.

Which one should you read?

Choose Wilson

Readers who want a swift first encounter in a regular English meter.

Wilson compresses a Greek line into crisp pentameter and makes interpretive choices easy to follow. The price of that speed can be less repetition and less room for ambiguity.

Choose Lattimore

Readers who want an English text that keeps more of the Greek poem's construction visible.

Lattimore gives syntax and formulas more space, even when the English resists us. The resistance is useful for study and less inviting for a casual first read.