This last few months since June have been quite busy; Violin Concerto No. 1 has been completed and I’ve just completed a new work for women’s chorus and string orchestra. This work is based on text from a new translation by Emily Wilson of Homer’s The Odyssey.
With the help of a friend I chose several profiles of the women in The Odyssey as a basis for my text; Penelope, Circe, the Sirens, & Odysseus’ mother. Working with this text was quite challenging but it was interesting to note that only two words appeared several times; “together” & “knowledge”. The first was in reference to the long separation between Penelope and Odysseus (20 years) as he went to fight the war in Troy and then struggled to return home.
The second word, “knowledge”, was in reference to seeking answers to the fates of loved ones; Penelope asking the goddess Athena about her son, Telemachus, and her husband. Also, in Emily Wilson’s brilliant translation she rightly points out that The Sirens were not offering “sex”, as many other translations (by men!) purported, but they were offering knowledge. At that time “knowledge” of the future, the whereabouts of your enemy etc. was power. To ‘know’ something was to be certain beyond a doubt. This made me think quite a lot about how in our time we mistake “information” for “knowledge.” What does it mean to really ‘know’ something today? Has a cursory Google search erased “knowledge” and replaced it with ‘information’?
Important questions about our ability to make decisions based on “knowledge” vs. “information’. That is why I’ve come back to The Odyssey many times and will likely do so in the future.