Ode to The Odyssey and the ancient Greek World

🌊 Ode To The Odyssey and the Ancient Greek World 

‘Tell me about a complicated man’ - in our showcase Emily Wilson’s opening of her modern English translation of the Odyssey can be found next to the unaltered Greek, also showing the first lines of Book One (The Gymnasium Classic, a 1947 edition for educational purposes). I want to invite customers and passers by to think about translation, as a reflection of our time through the mirror of the past. To cite Emily Wilson’s in her introduction to the Odyssey: ‘My translation is written in a style that echoes the rhythms and phrases of contemporary anglophone speech. It may be tempting to imagine that a translation of a very ancient poem would be somehow better if it used the language of an earlier era. Mild stylistic archaism is often accepted without question in translations of ancient texts and can be presented as if it were a mark of authenticity. But of course, the English of the nineteenth or early twentieth century is no closer to Homeric Greek than the language of today. The use of a noncolloquial or archaizing linguistic register can blind readers to the real, inevitable, and vast gap between the Greek original and any modern translation. My use of contemporary language—rather than the English of a generation or two ago—is meant to remind readers that this text can engage us in a direct way, and also that it is genuinely ancient. My Homer does not speak in your grandparents’ English, since that language is no closer to the wine-dark sea than your own. I have tried to keep to a register that is recognizably speakable and readable, while skirting between the Charybdis of artifice and the Scylla of slang.’ - Something to think about. 

🐂 The Hagia Triada Sarcophagus

The Sacred Ritual: From the Hagia Triada Sarcophagus to Homer's World

The scene on the ‘North side’ of the Hagia Triada Sarcophagus provides a rare visual bridge into the Bronze Age religious practices and the epic world of Homer. Even if the Homeric epics were written down around 750 BCE we can assume that the oral tradition that transported them to being written down goes back much further in time. Dating to around 1400 BCE, this Cretan limestone sarcophagus offers a rare insight into the sacrifice, ritual and burial customs. The actual bull sacrifice is present on the ‘South side’ and as a scene it has ties with The Odyssey. This ritual architecture is recognisable in Book 3, when Telemachus lands on the shores of Pylos, he finds King Nestor and his people gathered on the beach performing a massive, communal sacrifice of black bulls to Poseidon. Also, in book 11 of The Odyssey, when Odysseus travels to the dark edges of the Underworld, he and his men perform a sacrifice following certain steps (such as the pouring of libations and promising the future sacrifice of ‘his best young heifer’) and hereby again reinforcing the importance of sacrifice to gods when dealing with death.

‘I poured libations for all the dead: first honey-mix, sweet wine, and lastly water. On the top I sprinkled barley, and made a solemn vow that if I reached my homeland, I would sacrifice my best young heifer, still uncalved, and pile the altar high with offerings for the dead’ (Book 11, Verse 20 - The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson) 

1️⃣ Athena at the Nemean Lion Metope

2️⃣ Athena at the Augias-Metope

The trick with a secondhand bookshop is to use what you have in store (and hunt for spectacular additions), the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depict the Labours of Heracles. His guardian goddess Athena appears on four of them, and is represented with increasing maturity and authority. (Classical Art Research Center, Oxford University). Apart from Athena being Odysseus’s protector (albeit a paradoxical one) I chose to expose these opposing images representing the inevitable transformations we are submitted to when living the journeys of our lives. 

🏺Goden en Mensen in Hellas door Dr. G. van der Leeuw

This little book (in Dutch), written by the Dutch historian and philosopher of religion van der Leeuw, takes into consideration the relationship between the Hellenes and their gods. The gods in Hellas are simultaneously close and distant: on one side they have power over the lives of the Hellenes, but being capricious gods with their own turmoil and tempers, they also make allegorical sense of human experiences. Van der Leeuw explores the idea that the religious practice in Hellas was a way of life, dipped in art, celebrations and beauty. 

🪽The Eternal Drama, The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology by Jungian analyst Edward F. Edinger

‘Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Athena—do the gods and goddesses of Greece have anything to say to us that we haven't already heard? In this book, based on a series of his lectures, the eminent Jungian analyst and writer Edward F. Edinger revisits all the major figures, myths, oracles, and legends of the ancient Greek religion to discover what they can still reveal-representing, as they do, one of the religious and mythic foundations of Western culture. Building on C. G. Jung's assertion that mythology is an expression of the deepest layers of mind and soul, Dr. Edinger follows the mythic images into their persistent manifestations in literature and on into our modern lives. He finds that the gods indeed continue to speak as we grow in our capacity to listen and that the myths express the inner energies within all of us as much as ever. Heracles is eternally performing his labors, Perseus is still confronting the Medusa, Theseus is forever stalking the Minotaur, and Persephone is still being carried off to life in a new realm.’

🪏An Archaeological dive into the worlds of the Iliad and the Odyssey 

🦉Apollo Dionysos Aphrodite En Anderen Griekse goden in de hedendaagse filosofie

Through Samuel IJsseling’s books, we get closer to the ancient Greek gods who defined Western philosophy and still hold a lingering power over our way of thinking. The books explore the role of storytelling, showing how the different human qualities these gods represent are still of consequence to our modern lives. He argues that the only way to truly understand them, and understand human existence, is through the act of retelling these stories. Some food for thought.

✍ Beeld en Schrift in het oude Egypte 

We have added this fantastic book about Egyptian image and writing to our showcase to underline the deep connections between Ancient Greece and Egypt. Beyond the famous ‘Cretan Lie’ in Homer’s The Odyssey, where a disguised Odysseus invents a story about invading the Nile, surrendering, and ultimately being protected and rewarded with immense wealth by the Egyptian king, the connection between these two worlds is deeply embedded in the very anatomy of their languages. The classical Ancient Greek alphabet did not emerge out of total isolation. It evolved directly from a phonetic middle script (Proto-Sinaitic) that was created when Semitic workers adapted the sacred visual symbols of Egyptian hieroglyphs. We might say that the Greek letters are the abstract descendants of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

📖 The 1901 Dutch Odyssey by Dr. W.G. van der Weerd

Published in Amsterdam by S.L. van Looy, this 1901 edition marks a significant shift in Dutch literary history as the first complete prose translation of The Odyssey. Before its release, Dutch translations of Homer relied almost exclusively on classical verse and strict poetic meters. Van der Weerd moved away from this tradition by choosing a flowing prose style designed to present the epic as a clear, psychological narrative. In his introduction, the translator makes a direct reference to Goethe, who noted that the true and deeply educational essence of a great poet remains visible even when stripped of poetic constraints. Written in the elegant Dutch of the fin de siècle, the text includes meticulous 'korte ophelderingen '(short elucidations) to guide the reader through the geography and mythology of the ancient world.

⛵️ Récits mythiques et symbolisme de la navigation par R. Christinger, P. Solier et F. Siegenthaler 

What does the act of navigation truly mean to us humans? Beyond the practical history of seafaring, the authors dive deep into the spiritual symbolism of the vessel, the sea, and the journey. By analyzing ancient myths, from the voyages of Celtic lore to the archetypal wanderings found in The Odyssey, the text reveals that mythological maritime journeys are rarely just about geography. Instead, they serve as timeless allegories for the internal human experience.