![]() ![]() But in my version, I have chosen deliberately to interpret these epithets in several different ways, depending on the demands of the scene at hand. ![]() The epithets applied to Dawn, Athena, Hermes, Zeus, Penelope, Telemachus, Odysseus, and the suitors repeat over and over in the original. ![]() The formulaic elements in Homer, especially the repeated epithets, pose a particular challenge. Wilson combats this precise repetition, which can sound antiquated to modern ears, by varying the epithets according to the context: Different things will happen every day, but Dawn always appears, always with rosy fingers, always early. Zeus is often not just Zeus - he is "the great Thunderlord Zeus" - and Dawn (the Greek goddess of the dawn) is almost never just Dawn, as Wilson explains in the introduction:ĭawn appears some twenty times in The Odyssey, and the poem repeats the same line, word for word, each time: emos d'erigeneia phane rhododaktulos eos: "But when early-born rosy-fingered Dawn appeared." There is a vast array of such formulaic expressions in Homeric verse, which suggest that things have an eternal, infinitely repeatable presence. One of the things we're discussing as we go along are the repeated epithets.the descriptions of gods and people that are used over and over in the poem. Which has been amazing.reading this story out loud really feels like we're harkening back to the time of Homer. I had been slowly making my way through Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey, but on the advice of a Twitter pal, I backtracked and started reading it aloud to my kids. ![]()
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