The Odyssey#2: ”Tell Me About A Complicated Man, Muse”

2025-09-16

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Tell me about a complicated man, muse… In this episode of Instant Classics Book Club, Mary and Charlotte dwell on the first ten lines of The Odyssey (as translated by Emily Wilson) and show how it contains not only a summary of the story that follows, but introduces the themes, the subject, and the way the story will be told. Whoever Homer was, they were not a blind sage belting out rudimentary lyrics to listeners round a camp fire, but a sophisticated story-teller/s working and re-working their text to technical b...

Tell me about a complicated man, muse…

In this episode of Instant Classics Book Club, Mary and Charlotte dwell on the first ten lines of The Odyssey (as translated by Emily Wilson) and show how it contains not only a summary of the story that follows, but introduces the themes, the subject, and the way the story will be told. Whoever Homer was, they were not a blind sage belting out rudimentary lyrics to listeners round a camp fire, but a sophisticated story-teller/s working and re-working their text to technical brilliance.

In particular, Mary and Charlotte introduce us to an ancient Greek word in the first line which is the key to everything that follows. Polytropos (πολῠ́τροπος) is almost untranslatable, but it is the secret to not only Odysseus’ character, but the story itself. Deciding how to interpret this word is amongst the biggest decisions a translator takes.

Our aim in this episode is to get everyone thinking about polytropos - and how you might interpret it over the course of this story. Is it a good thing to be polytropos? Who in your life is polytropos? Try dropping the word into conversation with your boss. Or maybe don’t.

Send your thoughts to instantclassicspod@gmail.com

And don’t worry - the pace will pick up from here on!

Mary and Charlotte’s recommended reads:

You can find Emily Wilson’s discussion of “polytropos” (and her own debates about how to translate it) here: https://emily613.substack.com/p/on-complicated

Consistency alert: In the episode we sometimes refer to polytropos, sometimes to polytropon. That is because the main form of the word is polytropos, but it appears in these lines as polytropon (we’ll explain if you want!).

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole

Executive Producer: Jo Meek

Senior Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

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