Music

Welcome to the Eric Matax's show.

I'm the announcer and I've known Eric since he was a big nobody.

In fact, I'm one of the people he stepped on as he climbed the ladder of success.

And now my former friend, Eric Matax's.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna have to put foolish, the childless things aside

because I am so excited right now.

I have as my guest someone who claims to have translated the whole of the Odyssey from Homeric Greek into English.

I wouldn't believe it except for the fact that the book is right here in front of me.

Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she lives.

Emily Wilson, it is just a wonderful thing to have you here.

Thanks for being in the studio and thanks for being willing to talk about something that awes me.

This idea that you've translated this poem.

I don't know where to begin.

I really don't.

I'm not easily awed but I'm in fact awed about what you've accomplished here.

I was reading the New York Times magazine recently and anybody who knows me knows that I complain

because I read the Times always.

But particularly the New York Times magazine, I'm always annoyed at it because I feel like there's not much in it that interests me.

And I don't know what's happened to it.

But this week when I read the article about you and your new translation of the Odyssey, I thought,

this is why I read the New York Times magazine.

...