Emily Wilson在最近的Fresh Air播客谈到她在重译《奥德赛》，这期内容还不错的，感兴趣可以去听听

戴维斯：你花了六年时间翻译《奥德赛》，翻译《伊利亚特》也用了差不多同样长的时间，现在你还想再来一遍？

DAVIES: You spent six years translating “The Odyssey,” similar time translating “The Iliad,” and now you want to do it again?

威尔逊：是的。我上瘾了，没错。

WILSON: Yes (laughter). I’m addicted, yes (laughter).

戴维斯：为什么？我的意思是，你是不是觉得之前有些地方翻得不对，或者还有哪些地方需要进一步完善？我也说不好。

DAVIES: Why? I mean, were there things that you felt you got wrong or you needed to enhance or - I don’t know.

威尔逊：这个嘛，就像我们几分钟前说的那样，无论是翻译《奥德赛》还是《伊利亚特》，我都非常希望尽可能再现荷马诗歌那种迅疾流畅的阅读体验。所以在2017年版《奥德赛》译本中，我严格限定自己使用与原作完全相同的行数。我很喜欢这种做法，因为它有助于传达原诗的速度感。但与此同时，我又总是觉得：如果能多给我一两个音节，这个短语或者这个词，我就能处理得更充分一些。

WILSON: So, I mean, as we said a few minutes ago, I was very keen to try to replicate something like the experience of the rapidity of Homeric poetry in both my “Odyssey” and “Iliad” translation. So with my 2017 “Odyssey” translation, I confined myself to the same number of lines as the original, which I liked in terms of how it conveys the speed of the original poem, but I also was constantly feeling, if I just had one or two more syllables, I could do more with that phrase or that word.

翻译《伊利亚特》时，我放弃了逐行对应的限制，因此译文比原作多用了几行。我觉得效果反而更好。这样一来，我可以比翻译最初那版《奥德赛》时使用更多的多音节词。翻译《奥德赛》时，只要有可能，我几乎总是不得不使用单音节词，否则就没法把行数控制住，尤其是因为当时我还采用了……

With the “Iliad” translation, I gave up on the line-for-line constraint, so I used a few more lines than the original has, and I felt it worked better. I felt it enabled me to use more polysyllabic words than I could with the original “Odyssey” translation - that I was always forced to, whenever possible, use a monosyllable ‘cause otherwise the line count won’t work out, especially because I was using…

戴维斯：在我看来，你居然能做到这一点，本身就已经很了不起了。

DAVIES: It’s remarkable that you could pull that off, to me (laughter).

威尔逊：我的意思是，这确实是个很有趣的挑战。乐趣不仅在于每天都能一直和荷马打交道，也在于语言本身带来的挑战——翻译这件事本身就非常迷人，因为你始终都在破解同一道难题：面对两种语言，怎样才能完成一件不可能完成的事？

WILSON: I mean, it was a fun challenge. I mean, it was not just the fun of engaging with Homer all the time, every day, but also that fun language challenge which - translation is fascinating in itself because it’s this constant puzzle about how can you do the impossible with two languages?

所以，在新版《奥德赛》中，我正在把整部作品从头到尾重新翻译一遍，让它采用与我的《伊利亚特》译本相同的处理方式。我依然把许多与现有《奥德赛》译本相同的东西放在首位——韵律感、多声部特质、语言的直接性、情感冲击力，所有这些都没有变。但与此同时，我会使用更多的诗行，因此有时也能使用更长的词。这也意味着，我可以更充分地处理原作中的重复，而且这一次，我还会加入篇幅长得多得多的尾注。

So with my new translation of “The Odyssey,” I’m redoing the whole thing to match the approach of my “Iliad.” I’m prioritizing many of the same things as I do in my existing “Odyssey” translation - metricality, multivocality, the directness, the emotional impact, all of that. But I also am using more lines, therefore longer words sometimes. That also means that I can do more with the repetitions of the original, and I’m also going to have much, much longer endnotes.

戴维斯：翻得开心吗？

DAVIES: You having fun with it?

威尔逊：太开心了。真的。我已经翻完一半多了，而且我简直希望它永远不要结束。

WILSON: I’m having so much fun. Yes. I’m over halfway through, and I never want it to end.

戴维斯：艾米莉·威尔逊，非常感谢你接受我们的采访。

DAVIES: Emily Wilson, thank you so much for speaking with us.#海外新鲜事# http://t.cn/AXCm90xM