Cop of the Apocalypse

I have absolutely no problem with people saying that historical black figures of note should only be played by black actors. Why shouldn’t it be the same the other way round?

For everyone who thinks Wilson's “complicated” for Odysseus is bad; here are the opening 10 lines. One rule: translate every highlighted word with a single English word. No phrases. And keep the meter. Off you go. Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ Tell me, Muse, of the manyspun* man, who wandered very much πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν· after he sacked the sacred ptoliethron (πτολίεθρον; Homer's own poetic coinage for "city-stronghold"; neither polis nor modern πόλη nor the Latin-borrowed κάστρο Greeks say today; already archaic within antiquity) of Troy. πολλῶν δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, He saw the astea (ἄστεα; not merely "cities" but civilised worlds, each with its own order and customs; you are an outsider observing a whole way of life) of many men, and came to know their noon (νόον; mind, character, intention, disposition, the particular way a people think; "mindset" is too corporate, "soul" too religious, "intelligence" too narrow). πολλὰ δ᾿ ὅ γ᾿ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, And on the sea he suffered many algea (ἄλγεα; pains and griefs, physical and emotional simultaneously; Greek does not separate the aching body from the aching spirit) in his thumos (θυμόν; the warm beating centre of a person: courage, rage, desire, grief, and thought all housed together; Homeric man does not think separately from feeling; no Cartesian split here). ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων. striving to secure his own psychē (ψυχή; not yet the immortal soul of philosophy or Christianity, but breath-life, the thing that leaves through the mouth at death; to "save one's psychē" is simply to stay alive) and the nostos (νόστον; homecoming, but carrying the full weight of heroic longing, identity, and restoration; it gives us nostalgia, yet Homer's nostos is not sentiment, it is a warrior's existential purpose) of his companions. ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ· But not even so did he save his companions, though he was iemenos (ἱέμενός; not merely "eager" or "trying"; this word carries longing in the bones, a striving that is almost physical yearning; he did not just attempt to save them, he ached to). αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο, for they perished by their own atasthaliēsin (ἀτασθαλίῃσιν; reckless arrogance, moral blindness, the folly of those who know better and do it anyway; closer to hubris than stupidity, more self-destructive than either) νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο the nēpioi (νήπιοι; literally "not-yet-speaking," i.e. infants; used of adults it is contemptuous and pitying at once: children in the face of reality), who devoured the cattle of Helios Hyperion (the Sun as a living, watching, divine presence, not a star; an entity who notices and avenges) ἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ. and he stripped from them the νόστιμον ἦμαρ (νόστιμον ἦμαρ, literally "the nostos-day," the day of return; νόστιμον here is nostos as adjective, pressing the full weight of homecoming, longing, and identity onto a single day; "day of return" is the best English can do, and it is not enough). τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν. Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus; speak to us also, beginning from wherever you will.

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