SKALD Ten Greek words All analyses Translation Atlas Reader’s guide

Where translation stops being transcription

Ten Greek words translators can’t agree on.

Ten Greek words can make a familiar Odyssey strange again. Each appears in a vivid moment—a trick, a homecoming, a stranger at the door, a sea that refuses to be simply blue—and each has forced translators to choose what to keep. The Greek stays the same; the English options are different translators’ answers. Read them side by side and the poem starts to sound less fixed, more alive.

οἶνοψ πόντος

oinops pontos wine-faced sea
πλέων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον ἐπʼ ἀλλοθρόους ἀνθρώπους,
Odyssey 1.183

Why does Homer call the sea “wine-dark”? The phrase is famous because it sounds strange in English, and no translation makes the puzzle disappear. οἶνοψ links wine with the sea’s appearance without supplying one tidy colour. Palmer, Murray, and Johnston keep “wine-dark.” Bryant gives us a “dark blue deep,” while Cowper leaves colour behind for a “gloomy flood.” Segalá keeps the wine image in Spanish; Voß gives only a dark sea. Each choice gives up something different: Homer’s unsettling image, a clearer picture, or the water’s threatening mood. The phrase lasts because it asks us to see the sea through an image we cannot quite settle.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Beyond English

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 1.183 · LSJ, s.v. οἶνοψ · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. οἶνοψ

μῆτις

metis cunning intelligence; resourceful counsel
ὡς ὄνομʼ ἐξαπάτησεν ἐμὸν καὶ μῆτις ἀμύμων.
Odyssey 9.414

In the Cyclops’ cave, μῆτις is intelligence that works through timing, planning, and knowing what another person will hear. Polyphemus cries that Οὖτις, “Nobody,” is killing him at 9.408. His neighbours answer at 9.410 that if μή τίς, “no one,” is attacking him, they cannot help. At 9.414 Odysseus names the power behind the escape: his μῆτις, joined to his false name. Butler calls it a “clever stratagem,” Murray a “cunning device,” and Chapman makes it “wit / And name.” The choice matters: was the triumph the plan, the wordplay, or Odysseus’s quick mind? Homer makes it all three at once.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Beyond English

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 9.408-414 · LSJ, s.v. μῆτις · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. μῆτις

πολύτροπος

polytropos much-turning; versatile
ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
Odyssey 1.1

The Odyssey’s first description of Odysseus makes him hard to pin down. πολύτροπος suggests a man of many turns or many ways, but does not settle whether those are journeys, shifts of mind, or stratagems. Butler’s “ingenious” makes him inventive; Johnston’s “resourceful” makes him practical; Morris’s “Shifty” gives him a more suspicious cast. Murray’s “man of many devices” chooses tactical intelligence while keeping the sense plural. No one English adjective carries every possibility. Before Odysseus has done anything on the page, the Greek opens a question that the poem keeps testing: how should we value a hero whose great strength is his ability to change his approach?

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Beyond English

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 1.1 · LSJ, s.v. πολύτροπος · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. πολύτροπος

νόστος

nostos return home; homecoming
ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.
Odyssey 1.5

At the poem’s opening, νόστος names the return Odysseus is trying to win for his companions: not travel in the right direction, but arrival home after dangerous absence. Butler turns it into action, “bring his men safely home”; Murray makes it “the return of his comrades”; Pope imagines reaching a “natal shore.” The modern word “nostalgia” is still with us, but it is a later learned coinage combining νόστος with ἄλγος, “pain.” Homeric νόστος itself means homecoming, not the modern feeling of nostalgia. That difference matters because a return in the Odyssey can be delayed, damaged, denied, or achieved at terrible cost.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 1.5 · LSJ, s.v. νόστος · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. νόστος · OED, s.v. nostalgia

ξεῖνος

xeinos guest; stranger
ξεῖνοί τε πτωχοί τε· δόσις δʼ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε
Odyssey 14.58

At Eumaeus’s door, a ξεῖνος is the person who may be both stranger and guest before anyone knows where he belongs. English usually forces the choice too soon. Butler says “strangers and beggars,” Cotterill says “Beggars and guests,” and Morris joins “guests and bedesmen.” The same Greek root is still with us in “xeno-” and “xenophobia,” words that stress the outsider; Homer’s word can also name someone owed food, shelter, and protection. Eumaeus grounds that duty in Zeus, so insulting a vulnerable visitor is more than bad manners. Translate only “guest” and the risk of the unknown fades; translate only “stranger” and so does the duty to welcome.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 14.57-58 · LSJ, s.v. ξένος · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. ξεῖνος

ψυχή

psyche life-breath; soul or shade
ἀστραγάλων ἐάγη, ψυχὴ δʼ Ἄϊδόσδε κατῆλθε.
Odyssey 11.65

Elpenor tells Odysseus how a drunken fall broke his neck and his ψυχή went down to Hades. English “psyche” comes from this Greek word, but Homer is not describing a modern inner self. Translators make what leaves the body a “soul,” a “spirit,” or a “shade”; Hobbes tells the fall without naming it separately. Each choice brings a different picture of death. “Soul” can suggest a whole person continuing, while “shade” sounds thinner and diminished. Yet Elpenor can speak, remember, and plead for burial. The scene keeps him recognisably present while making the loss of bodily life impossible to ignore.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 11.65 · LSJ, s.v. ψυχή · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. ψυχή

κλέος

kleos fame; report or renown
ἀνθρώποισι μέλω, καί μευ κλέος οὐρανὸν ἵκει.
Odyssey 9.20

When Odysseus finally names himself, he boasts that his κλέος reaches heaven. κλέος can mean fame or report: a reputation that people hear and pass on. Butler and Murray choose “fame,” Morris raises it to “glory,” and Worsley gives the more unsettled “rumour.” Chapman makes the deeds themselves audible: his “facts ... resound.” These are not merely different levels of praise. They change whether we hear a hero honoured for what he did or a name growing because people keep talking. The Odyssey knows that stories make a reputation as well as preserve one, and that the version which survives may never be the whole person.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 9.20 · LSJ, s.v. κλέος · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. κλέος

θυμός

thymos heart; inner drive
πολλὰ δʼ ὅ γʼ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,
Odyssey 1.4

As Odysseus suffers at sea, Homer says the pain is in his θυμός. “Heart” is often the nearest English choice, but the word can name a person’s active inner life: feeling, desire, resolve, or thought. Murray and Cotterill use “heart,” Palmer’s “own breast” makes the suffering bodily, and Johnston chooses “spirit.” Several translators simply say that Odysseus suffers. Later, θυμός can be stirred, restrained, or made to deliberate, without laying out one fixed theory of the mind or body. Greek keeps this inner life responsive and physical; English usually divides the work among heart, mind, soul, and will.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 1.4 · LSJ, s.v. θυμός · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. θυμός

ἀτασθαλίη

atasthaliē wild recklessness; ruinous folly
αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,
Odyssey 1.7

The crew’s destruction is not presented as one unlucky mistake. ἀτασθαλίη names reckless, self-willed behaviour that helps bring ruin on the people who choose it. Johnston’s “stupidity” sounds blunt and everyday; Butler’s “sheer folly” is more tragic; Pope’s “impious folly” makes the offence religious; Hobbes’s “insolence” makes it defiant. The form in this line is plural, and the plural can present the disaster as the result of reckless acts rather than one neutral mistake. The gods still shape events, but the poem’s opening gives the men a share in their own loss. Translation decides how sharply we hear that blame.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 1.7 · LSJ, s.v. ἀτασθαλία · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. ἀτασθαλίη

ἀμύμων

amymōn blameless; faultless
μνήσατο γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀμύμονος Αἰγίσθοιο,
Odyssey 1.29

Zeus remembers Aegisthus with ἀμύμων, a praising word often rendered “blameless,” then immediately explains why Aegisthus is to blame. He took Agamemnon’s wife, killed him on his return, and ignored a divine warning about the revenge to come. Worsley keeps the shock with “Blameless Ægisthus.” Palmer softens it to “gentle,” Murray and others choose “noble,” and several translators leave the word out. Chapman goes the other way with “Faultful Ægisthus,” making the local judgment explicit. The mismatch shows how a familiar heroic label can rub against the scene around it. Translation must either preserve that tension, smooth it, or resolve it for the reader.

How the English translations in Skald render it here

Sources: Homer, Odyssey 1.29-43 · LSJ, s.v. ἀμύμων · Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, s.v. ἀμύμων

Read them in place.

Skald shows every one of these words in its own line, beside the Greek and all twenty-four translations.

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