Wisconsin (2016) p/b 81pp £12.95 (ISBN 9780299306342)
Following on Susan McLean’s deft version of Martial epigrams, here is another Wisconsin translation by an experienced hand (Catullus, Sophocles’ ‘Theban trilogy’). M.’s introduction clearly lays out his method: iambics go into the English equivalent (but five instead of six), anapaests into a repetitious marching rhythm (with many tribrachs), and the few trochees at 1343ff. into a shorter trochaic line. Iambic speech is translated pretty well line-by-line. For choral passages, M. writes short (mostly) rhymed stanzas: ‘In using end rhyme for Greek lyrics, I am attempting to create the same sort of undercurrent (sc. audience aesthetic pleasure at verbal ingenuity) by the only appropriate means in my repertoire.’
There is a good deal to admire here. M. knows his Aeschylus, and displays considerable ingenuity in keeping close to the Greek and yet ending up with intelligible and speakable English. Here is the Watchman (31-39):
…and I myself will dance a prelude first.
(He dances a jig)
I’ll use my master’s lucky cast somehow.
This vigil rolled a triple six for me.
Just let me see the house’s lord return
and let me hold his kindly hand in mine.
I’m silent otherwise. A giant ox
stands on my tongue. If palace walls could talk,
you’d hear some lively tales. Perhaps you catch
my drift. That’s good. If not…my memory fails.
Or Clytemnestra (869-73):
To die as often as they said he did
would take a triple-bodied Geryon,
and he could boast of having donned a cloak
of dirt three times, each body buried once,
with ample soil above and more below.
Faced with Aeschylus’ more intractable expressions or a corrupt text, M. rightly trusts his judgement and is not afraid to recast. He even gets away with Agamemnon’s cries from inside the house (1343ff.), famously mocked in Housman’s parody. There are inevitable oddities (e.g. he loses the archer image at 628), but in general the iambic passages move along nicely. It is when M. tackles lyric passages that one has some reservations.
Using rhyme to suggest the complex rigour of strophic structures is not a bad idea, and M.’s touch is on the whole secure, but stanzas of four short lines can risk losing vivid imagery, and sometimes teeter dangerously on the edge of doggerel (406-10):
See her gaily tripping through
the city gates on tip of toe,
to dare what she had no right to.
The household prophets cry, ‘Eeoo!’
Or 1468-74:
The god attacking Tantalids
employs a matching pair
of women doing as he bids.
It’s more than I can bear.
See! On the corpse, the hateful crow
sings tuneless hymns fortissimo!
The fourth line isn’t really good enough for kardiodêkton (and the Greek says ‘like a crow’, probably the god/daimôn.) There’s more to Aeschylus’ craggy choruses than this reveals; and when M. gives longer lines (e.g. to the lion cub passage, 717-35) he is far more successful.
Short of Tony Harrison’s great re-creation, produced for strictly dramatic performance, there will probably never be a really satisfactory translation of Agamemnon. M.’s rendering could well become the standard text for students of classics in English, as pre-reading for those attempting the difficult Greek, and possibly as an acting version. Despite the doubts expressed above about some choral passages, it is the best this reviewer has come across.
Anthony Verity