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Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:54 pm
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Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:55 pm
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:45 pm
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For primary source of Egyptian texts (Pyramid and Coffin Texts, Book of Coming Forth by Day), Raymond O. Faulkner's translations is the most widely used and respected. He was an Egyptologist and philologist, and also taught Egyptian language at University College London for 13 years.
I think the reason why most reconstructionists prefer his work over the translations of E.A. Wallis Budge is because Budge's versions of history rarely differentiate between historical fact and conjecture. What I've noticed, though, is in my copies of the texts I mentioned above, Faulkner uses many footnotes to compare his choice of translating problematic words or phrases as opposed to other authors, and why he chose them. In this way we at least have other options of understanding a phrase, but justification for his choice. Budge also came before Faulkner, and generally the later in Egyptology one publishes one's work, the better, since we're finding new evidence all the time from which to understand Egypt through its own artifacts.
Personally, though, I would not even recommend reading the primary sources when beginning to study Kemet since a lot of the writings are not revealed texts so much as filled with many allusions to cultural peculiarities and mythos that for us would make little sense without prior background knowledge.
I think a "good" translation is one in which the ideas are presented from within that culture's understanding and context as much as possible, without modern bias getting in the way. It is also nice if phrases are preserved as they are, with footnotes explaining the significance with (is there is any available) a similar English idiomatic phrase that we can compare to- rather than just supplying the English equivalent itself. It would be problematic to approach Egyptian writings with the purpose of making them "easy to understand" since the ideas themselves are very complex. To disregard that would make the meaning lost in translation.
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:52 pm
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 4:40 pm
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I think I'd have to had an additional requirement to good translation to what Fiddler wants:
If the piece is in lines, put the translation in lines. Especially the Iliad or the Odyssey. I know it's supposed to be a great epic story so people like putting into prose but STOP DOING IT. First of all, it doesn't flow in prose, secondly, it makes a lot less sense in prose because the lines are often padded with common turns of poetry to make them fit the metre. It's why Homer will continuously call a hero brillant, because it makes it fit the line. Also, it makes it so much easier to reference.
As for the Iliad and the Odyssey, according to my profs, there are generally two seen as really good. One is a bit old, but very skillfully done, the other more recent, and they are the editions translated by Richard Lattimore (1951 Iliad, 1963 Odyssey) or Stanley Lombardo (1997 Iliad, 2000 Odyssey).
Lattimore is generally the favoured and the better one to pick up, because a lot of recent commentary is based on that version and he tends to be truer to the poetry, but Lombardo can be a little more plain and thus easier for some people, and also he does something very important that Lattimore does not. He preserves the word order of the first lines of the poems to put "wrath" and "man" first in their respective poems. This is important because that word is the entirety of the poem itself: Achilles wrath and (the wandering) man that is Odysseus).
But yes, for the Iliad and the Odyssey, Lattimore and Lombardo have very good translations for both.
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 5:26 pm
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 5:33 pm
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Bastemhet TeaDidikai Kemetic: Raymond O. Faulkner's translations Includes footnotes that distinguish between hard evidence and conjecture about ancient Egyptian traditions Oh, let me be a little clearer 'cause looking back now I can see why it looks like I said that. What I meant was in Budge's other Egyptological writings he puts forth conjecture as fact. However in the primary texts there's no room for that- but I've heard that his translations are prone to more error than Faulkner's. In Faulkner's works, the footnotes are where he cites other authors and the words they translated, what he changed, and why. Fixed.
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:47 pm
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Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:00 pm
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Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 8:50 am
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