The aegis of the wasp

Reading Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad got me talking, out loud, like: “As we know, clever Odysseus was favored by the goddess Athena.”

I’ve found that one benefit of marriage no one talks about is: there’s always someone around to debate how Odysseus spoke. Or at least, wondering out loud together how he sounded to others: Fancy, like the King of Ithaca? Or more like a wise guy, or a pirate? Wilson’s translation reminds me that one way to understand who some of these ancient heroes might be is as swift horse-lords. So, my money is on Odysseus sounding more like a country bumpkin who happens to very persuasive. (And I maybe have to admit that not every married couple talks about Odysseus every night. Imagine that!)

Feels appropriate that while reading The Iliad, I got obsessed with a project after a four-month break, and finally finished The Wasp:

Whenever I stitch a pattern, I reflect on the image a lot. My relationships to wasps is fraught, let’s say. I find their winter-dead nests sublime. I fear the power of the wasp, every stinger and drop of venom. Seeing them defeated by the cold lets me be more curious than afraid:

But they’ll be stirring for Spring again, soon enough.

Three years ago I fell deep into cross-stitch, and stitching denim, during lockdown while also reading Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey. I felt connected to Penelope in this translation, deeper than I had before.

So much of these ancient poems are about fabric, textiles, and weaving. Even the concept of fate is represented by a mortal life as a thread, which the gods can cut to end. And in the introduction to The Iliad, Wilson explains that an ancient Greek metaphor for death was an untying of one’s limbs. In death, we are unknotted, untethered. (And in the poem, every time a warrior falls there is a scramble to strip and try on his bronze armor.)

I do love that in Homer’s poems, even the goddesses make their own clothing. From Wilson’s translation of the Iliad:

“Athena, child of Zeus who bears the aegis,
Shook off the flowy, soft, embroidered dress
That her own hands had woven and created,
And left it in her father’s entryway.”

(She does this to put in battle armor!)

When I am deep in a cross-stitch project, and when I am reading Homer’s poetry in translation, I pay extra attention to fabric and textiles.

I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time at Philly’s excellent museums this season. At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I was inspired in 2020 to finally read Wilson’s Odyssey after walking through Cy Twombly’s Fifty Days at Iliam.

It was also a pleasure to see Dakar I by Sam Gilliam, and marvel at its texture:

And of course, the Philadelphia Fabric Workshop and Museum awes me every time: