Comparing Odyssey And Tone Differences In Fitzgerald's Odyssey

While everyone has their own way of telling a story, a translator’s job is to tell it accurately as well as get the original author’s message across through the use of a different language. One of the work’s to which many people are familiar with is the Odyssey, written by Homer, and translated by many. But focusing on two specific translations, Robert Fitzgerald’s and Stanley Lombardo's there are many differences, as well as similarities, between the two.

By having read each translation, the most obvious difference to me between the two, is the ease to which I was able to understand Fitzgerald’s translation. I struggled more with Lombardo, with the way he translated his book, because of the detail used, while Fitzgerald seemed to include

words that we’re familiar with today. However, the one which I felt stayed true to the original was Lombardo. I know from class, that the way in which the Odyssey was written, was in a slightly vague way, where some phrases included required some thought to make sense of. The length of each work was a difference as well, because while Lombardo goes and explains everything thoroughly, Fitzgerald can go ahead and get all of the same things said with much less words. As can be seen from this following quote: “Ah, bitterly you need Odysseus, then! High time he came back to engage these upstarts. I wish we saw him standing helmeted there in the doorway, holding shield and spear, looking the way he did when I first knew him. . . .”(Fitzgerald, Lines 45-50).Versus Lombardo’s same scene, but 10 lines longer, goes to show his brevity. Howard Baker came to the similar realization because he mentioned that Fitzgerald’s “simplicity” created an easier understanding of an ancient work for a modern day reader not fluent in Greek, while giving it a feeling of “eloquence to Homer.”What helped in making Fitzgerald’s much shorter, was the included summaries before the start of each new book. These in turn set up the coming scenes, unlike Stanley’s which keeps the reader from knowing too much too soon.
Tone plays a large part, in the understanding of both translations.

From Fitzgerald’s translation, I got the tone to be one of obscurity. With his poetic style, his translation read like that of a script, not a mere description. The tone I picked up on with Lombardo was one of straightforwardness. Rather than try to conceal his meanings behind grandiose phrases, he told his simply in the form of a story, only trying to get the events across to the reader. “Speak, Immortal One, and tell the tale once more in our time. By now, all the others who had fought at Troy— At least those who had survived the war and the sea— were safely back home. Only Odysseus Still longed to return to his home and his wife. The nymph Calypso, a powerful goddess— and beautiful—was clinging to him In her caverns and yearned to possess him. The seasons rolled by, and the year came In which the gods spun the thread For Odysseus to return home to Ithaca, Though not even there did his troubles end, Even with his dear ones around him. All the gods pitied him, except Poseidon, Who stormed against the godlike hero until he finally reached his own native land.”(Lombardo, Lines 11-27). Knowing full well what the story was, and what it meant, Lombardo, by giving us this brief but informative intro, gives us some insight into the culture of the Greeks, and the challenges faced by heroes in their lore. Annette Giesecke author of “Mapping Utopia” also caught this, as she mentions how this story by Homer, “gave

insight into the lives of the Greeks and their beliefs.”
The development of the characters were each different when being written about by the different authors.

By including the detail that Athena “begged” her father to help Odysseus, Fitzgerald seemed to make her out as someone who was more submissive to her father, Zeus. Lombardo, on the other hand, painted her to be the exact opposite, with enough strong will to challenge Zeus verbally, quarreling with him about Odysseus’s journey, all the while “glaring” at him. Telemachus, while facing the same task of speaking to the suitors with both translators, in the end each has a different outcome. In Fitzgerald’s account, he goes off by starting with Telemachus being surrounded by a godly glow, but soon the reader sees the weakness hidden in Telemachus, just as the suitors pick up on that as well. Gathering their courage, they in the end, propose that he comes to a decision about handing his mother’s hand in marriage over to one of them. However, in Lombardo’s, he makes the reader feel as if Telemachus is much stronger, because he not only set boundaries on the suitors, but for each retort by them, he has a sharp comeback. These two observations of the characters allow us to see the feelings that each translator feels towards the epic. With their different views towards the construction of the characters and with the help set by their separate tones, this is yet another example by which their retellings differ. With this, Robert Bagg makes a valid point with his analysis of

Fitzgerald’s text, understanding how by portraying these notable characters like this, he is retaining a more reverent look into the Greek original by giving them values “true to the Greeks.”
While they each hold on to the story in it’s basic form, knowing that each one carries something different, provides a different experience, making them each their own. Lombardo gives his characters more strength, but he also lacked in his effort to make his conform to Greek, opting instead to sate the minds of the modern reader. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, goes on to stick to the script, following Homer’s Odyssey closer in terms of storyline, yet in doing so alienates himself and his text, losing the attention of a large number of potential readers.