I mean, I'll just let the prose speak for itself.
Lombardo start:
Speak, Memory
Of the cunning hero,
The wanderer, blown off course time and again
After he plundered Troy's sacred heights.
Speak
Of all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped,
The suffering deep in his heart at sea
As he struggled to survive and bring his men home
But could not save them, hard as he tried—
The fools—destroyed by their own recklessness
When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun,
And that god snuffed out their day of return.
Wilson start:
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.
You have 2 options to explain the above discrepancies:
1) One of the 2 translators has faulty Ancient Greek(the above 2 passages cannot be serious at the same time as translations of a literary work).
2) Modern Classics/modern readers don't care about the actual writing and only want the plot.
Just go read her translator's notes. She displays absolutely astonishing arrogance there that basically foreshadows that the whole book is basically an intender rewrite for modern sensibilities.
For example, she literally herself admits that "Unlike many modern translators, I have avoided describing the Cyclops with words such as "savage", which carry with them the legacy of early modern and modern forms of colonialism - a legacy that is, of course , anachronistric in the world of The Odyssey".
Lombardo start: Speak, Memory Of the cunning hero, The wanderer, blown off course time and again After he plundered Troy's sacred heights. Speak Of all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped, The suffering deep in his heart at sea As he struggled to survive and bring his men home But could not save them, hard as he tried— The fools—destroyed by their own recklessness When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun, And that god snuffed out their day of return.
Wilson start: 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.
You have 2 options to explain the above discrepancies: 1) One of the 2 translators has faulty Ancient Greek(the above 2 passages cannot be serious at the same time as translations of a literary work). 2) Modern Classics/modern readers don't care about the actual writing and only want the plot.
Just go read her translator's notes. She displays absolutely astonishing arrogance there that basically foreshadows that the whole book is basically an intender rewrite for modern sensibilities.
For example, she literally herself admits that "Unlike many modern translators, I have avoided describing the Cyclops with words such as "savage", which carry with them the legacy of early modern and modern forms of colonialism - a legacy that is, of course , anachronistric in the world of The Odyssey".