finelythreadedsky: katherinebarlow:Orestes by Euripides, 408 BCE (“…μὴ θεαί μ᾽ οἴστρῳ κατάσχωσι.”) t
finelythreadedsky: katherinebarlow: Orestes by Euripides, 408 BCE (“…μὴ θεαί μ᾽ οἴστρῳ κατάσχωσι.”) trans. Michael Wodhull, 1782 (“Lest those Goddesses should seize me/ With frenzy.”) trans. T. A. Buckley, 1858 (“I fear lest the Goddesses should stop me with their torments.”) trans. E. P. Coleridge, 1891 (“I am afraid the goddesses will prevent me by madness.”) trans. Arthur S. Way, 1898 (“Lest the Fiends by madness stay me.”) trans. Philip Vellacott, 1972 (“This: suppose the Furies drive me mad?”) trans. Kenneth McLeish, 1997 (“If the goddesses come… another fit…”) trans. David Kovacs, 2002 (“…the fear that the goddesses may seize me with frenzy.”) trans. Anne Carson, 2009 (“The ghastly goddessess—they’ll send my wits astray.”) trans. Ian Johnston, 2010 (“I’m worried the goddesses will stop me with this madness.”) #there’s so much lost if you just read one translation#you know the one#translation is difficult#and it’s even more so with an ancient text#meaning is lost#and that’s just the nature of translation#but anne carson did a verse translation#and intentionally sacrificed meaning in favor of poeticism#anne carson is a sublime writer and poet#but her works should be read as poetic interpretations of the text#it’s rotten work#is beautiful in its own context#but gone is the motif of sickness#be it the madness or violence that runs through their bloodline#and that’s why it matters that pylades is orestes and elektra’s cousin#because it’s their family curse#anyway#i just wish people would read more than three lines of one translation#these all reflect the time period in which they were translated#note how the mcleish translation sounds like it’s straight out of angels in america -- source link