Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamlet53
The Lattimore translation of the reference that most struck me in Book 9 about the relation ship between Achilleus and Patroklos was:
In the Mitchell translation this becomes:
Now I can see that in 1951 when Lattimore published his translation “beloved companion” probably did not have the heavy sexual conotation it does today. However, the Mitchell translation was published in 2011 and even dear companion sounds a little sexual.
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You bring up something I've also been thinking about while reading. I checked some gay-ish passages against other online versions and some versions seem to still suggest a possible sexual dimension while others seem to take pains to make any relations between men seem completely and utterly platonic.
What I've personally read into this, and obviously this is my own opinion based off only the little outside information I've read and comparing translations, but what I read into this is that some translators I think are purposely taking out the possible sexual element/extra-close bond and almost sort of censoring it.
From what I can tell, we don't really know for certain what Homer meant. We know that the Greeks were much more open to a form of bisexuality but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's what Homer meant. While on the other hand, I don't think there's any concrete evidence that Homer only ever meant platonic friendship as some translators take pains to put it.
But again, I am not a scholar on the subject. At the moment I lean towards thinking that Homer may have been referring to a possible sexual element (that would've seemed normal in their culture), or not even referring to a sexual element exactly but simply alluding to a very close and strong friendship and love bond between men that happened to include sex (i.e. to us we first think sex but to them they may have first thought something more along the lines of "best-loved friend for life" sort of thing). These are just my opinions thus far though and additional info could sway them!