[sparks1970]

Maybe it's a small thing, but Wilson uses the adjective "wrecked" where the other translators use "sacked" or "plundered".

If that kind of loss of fidelity/nuance is typical of the translation then it's not for me. Maybe I misunderstood and this translation is intended as an easy-reading introduction for readers with reduced vocabularies?

[theoldlove]

I agree I don’t like wrecked. The Greek is the verb πέρθω, which is used exclusively in Homer for destroying/plundering/sacking towns.[0]. Wrecked sounds like I got into an unintended accident and ruined my car — not at all the same connotations to my ear.

[0] https://logeion.uchicago.edu/πέρθω

[watwut]

No, it is meant to be accurate one to one line translation.

The translator doing slightly different choices, often more accurate to original does not make it worst.

And yes, it sounds better because it is translation to actual English. There is no loss of nuance here anyway.

[davidivadavid]

I had the misfortune of coming across a bunch of tweets lamenting how "inferior" that translation is supposed to be — unfortunately, it seems to invariably come from people who can't read Ancient Greek, don't understand poetry, and don't even know what constraints Wilson adopted for her translation.

As a (once) professional translator with some familiarity with the language, I'd like to reassure potential readers that it's a fine translation with a unique parti pris. It's in spirit probably closer to the original than some translations that may be more canonical, e.g. Pope's, but that have been criticized just as harshly (or more) in the past.

[Amezarak]

Nobody thinks Pope is “canonical”, they look at Pope as essentially a retelling or adaption. Wilson’s “translation” falls in the same category, except she doesn’t have the genius of Pope. I suppose this is what you mean by “parti pris”, but what’s tiresome is people acting like it is some work of art or “real English” as someone in this thread said.

I’ve not heard of Peter Green before but that translation doesn’t look to be great either, if the sample is representative. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that, translating Homer was a schoolboy/girl exercise for centuries but only a very rare talent ever got something beyond serviceable. Again, the tiresome part is people celebrating workmanlike translations for social reasons.