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Roman Helmet Guy is a moron. Here's why:
The word is a compound adjective formed by the prefix poly- (from polys, meaning “many”, “multiple”, or “great in number”) + the noun tropos + the adjectival ending -os.
Tropos itself derives from the verb trepō (τρέπω), “to turn, to twist, to change direction”. Its IE root trep- carries the core sense of “turning” or “bending”. In Greek, tropos literally means “a turn”, “a twist”, “a way”, “a direction”, or “a path”, and only secondarily “manner”,
“character”, “method” or “habit”. Thus the literal etymological force of polytropos is “having many turns” or “of many twistings/ways” aka a single word that fuses multiplicity (poly-) with the idea of deviation, adaptation, and change (tropos). It is not a simple descriptor; it encodes the notion of something that constantly “turns” or “shifts”, whether geographically or mentally.
Per the standard reference Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon, the word carries two intertwined layers of meaning:Literal / physical: “much-turned”, “much-wandering”, “much-traveled”, “roaming widely”. This is precisely how Odysseus is understood in Odyssey 1.1 (“ἄνδρα … πολύτροπον”) and again at 10.330 (Circe addressing him).
Metaphorical / characterological: “versatile”, “of many devices”, “resourceful”, “wily”, “shifty”, “adaptable”.
Examples: Hermes (Homeric Hymn to Hermes), Plato (Hippias Minor 364e–365a, where he contrasts the “polytropos” Odysseus with the “simple” Achilles), Thucydides (versatility of mind), Plutarch (on Alcibiades).
Later texts can shade into “fickle” or “changeable”.
The adverb polytropōs simply means “in many ways” or “variously”. In Modern Greek the word survives as a learned term meaning “resourceful,” “inventive,” “intricate,” or “complicated”, with the same double edge.
Homer places polytropos in the very first line of the Odyssey (“Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον…”) precisely because the word is deliberately ambiguous. It invites a double reading that no single English adjective can fully replicate:
Literal: the hero who has literally “turned” through countless places; Trojan War, stormy seas, islands, underworld, back to Ithaca.
Metaphorical: the hero whose mind and character are full of twists; cunning, shape-shifting, never straightforward, endlessly adaptive.
This is not accidental. Homer is announcing a new kind of hero: not the straight-line, uncomplicated warrior (Achilles, “the simplest and most truthful”, in Plato’s words), but the multifaceted, many-layered, non-linear survivor. Polytropos is the ancient Greek way of saying “complicated man”. Emily Wilson’s choice of “complicated” is therefore not a simplification or a betrayal of the Greek; it is a defensible modern English rendering that captures the core etymological and conceptual force of the word.
“Complicated” preserves the sense of “many turns”, “not straightforward”, “full of twists”; both in Odysseus’s journey and in his character, while remaining immediately intelligible to contemporary readers. English simply has no single native word that packs the same literal + metaphorical punch as the Greek compound. “Man of many ways,” “versatile,” “wily,” or “of many devices” all require footnotes or sound archaic; “complicated” does the job cleanly.
They attack Wilson for choosing “complicated”. Who? Peoople who do not read ancient Greek (and certainly not fluently). They are reacting to a surface-level English word without grasping the layered ambiguity Homer himself built into polytropos.
Someone who cannot read the original line, who has never parsed the etymology of tropos, and who has never seen how later Greek authors exploited the same double meaning is simply not in a position to lecture a professional classicist on what the Greek “really” means.
Wilson did a good translation. She's is genuinely a good scholar.
They, on the other hand, are ποικιλοτρόπως, πολυτρόπως, παντοτρόπως, διαρκώς, και εντελώς αμετατρόπως ηλίθιοι.
Roman Helmet Guy@romanhelmetguy
In Emily Wilson’s own explanation of why she misleadingly translated ‘polytropos’ (literally ‘many-turned’ or ‘many-turning’) to the pejorative epithet ‘complicated’ when describing Odysseus, she gives the correct translation:
English
