109
3 Down to the Sea in Ships
Another such cluster raises similar problems, with the additional complexity that it
indicates the poverty of contemporary English as well as the overlapping denotations of certain Greek terms.
Geographical sources normally refer to large bodies of water (other than inland
lakes) by one of three terms: θάλασσα (thalassa),
11
πέλαγος (pelagos), and πόντος
(pontos). The same body of water may be defined by a different term in different
contexts. For example, the ‘Sicilian sea’ is sometimes a pelagos,
12
sometimes a
thalassa.
13
The Black sea, properly the euxeinos (‘hospitable’) pontos, can also be
the ‘Pontic thalatta’.
14
Today’s Arab–Persian gulf is usually the Persikos kolpos
15
but sometimes the Persikē thalassa.
16
A fourth term, ὠκεανός (ōkeanos), is reserved for the outer Ocean that surrounds
all of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It would be bizarre not to employ ‘ocean’ (or
Okeanos or Ocean) to translate it; but this, if unavoidable, deprives us of a familiar
term for large bodies of salt water such as those we call the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans (in Greek, these are not ‘oceans’ but subdivisions of the one and only
Okeanos).
‘Sea’ is an extremely scalable word in English: it can denote a relatively small
enclosed body of water (Aral sea, Black sea, Caspian sea), a division thereof (sea of
Azov), an inlet of the outer ocean (Baltic sea), a marginal segment of the outer
ocean (North sea, Irish sea, Weddell sea), or even the largest enclosed sea in the
world, the Mediterranean sea. In several of the cases just mentioned, the word ‘sea’
is often omitted in English when the body of water is named (e.g. the Caspian, the
Baltic, the Mediterranean).
17
Unfortunately, ‘sea’ is also effectively the only familiar English term available
with which to translate the other three words. The famous thesaurus of Roget in
modernized versions is of little help.
18
Accordingly, it is usual to find thalassa,
11 Or θάλαττα, thalatta, in Attic (Athenian) Greek.
12 e.g. Ps.-Aristotle, 3; Strabo, 6. 2. 1.
13 Dionysios Periegetes, 401 (poetic).
14 Strabo, 1. 3. 4.
15 e.g. Strabo, 16. 3. 2, kolpos meaning ‘gulf’, ‘bay’.
16 e.g. Agathemeros, 3. 12.
17 LSJ and Brill both translate θάλασσα (thalassa) as ‘sea’. For πόντος (pontos) Brill gives ‘sea,
open sea’, replicating LSJ’s ‘sea, esp. open sea’, after Homer ‘chiefly used of special seas [. . .] but
Hdt. has also ὁ πόντος’ [ho pontos] ‘for the sea, 4.99, 177’; at those places Herodotos describes
peninsulas as projecting ἐς τὸν πόντον, es ton ponton, ‘into the open sea’. For πέλαγος (pelagos)
LSJ gives ‘the sea, esp. high sea, open sea’, Brill ‘sea, usu. Open sea, deep sea’, which illustrates
the difficulty of distinguishing the last two in translation.
18 In the edition by Dutch (Roget and Dutch 1962), §343 Ocean includes ‘sea, blue water, salt w.,
brine, briny; waters, billows, saves, tide, wave; […] main, deep, deep sea; high seas’, but otherwise
contains mostly poetic, jocular, or technical terms. The shorter edition by Browning (Roget and
Browning 1982), §341 Ocean, offers a subset of the above.
Sun, Sea, and Sky: On Translating Directions (and Other Terms) in the Greek Geographers
3 Down to the Sea in Ships
Another such cluster raises similar problems, with the additional complexity that it
indicates the poverty of contemporary English as well as the overlapping denotations of certain Greek terms.
Geographical sources normally refer to large bodies of water (other than inland
lakes) by one of three terms: θάλασσα (thalassa),
11
πέλαγος (pelagos), and πόντος
(pontos). The same body of water may be defined by a different term in different
contexts. For example, the ‘Sicilian sea’ is sometimes a pelagos,
12
sometimes a
thalassa.
13
The Black sea, properly the euxeinos (‘hospitable’) pontos, can also be
the ‘Pontic thalatta’.
14
Today’s Arab–Persian gulf is usually the Persikos kolpos
15
but sometimes the Persikē thalassa.
16
A fourth term, ὠκεανός (ōkeanos), is reserved for the outer Ocean that surrounds
all of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It would be bizarre not to employ ‘ocean’ (or
Okeanos or Ocean) to translate it; but this, if unavoidable, deprives us of a familiar
term for large bodies of salt water such as those we call the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans (in Greek, these are not ‘oceans’ but subdivisions of the one and only
Okeanos).
‘Sea’ is an extremely scalable word in English: it can denote a relatively small
enclosed body of water (Aral sea, Black sea, Caspian sea), a division thereof (sea of
Azov), an inlet of the outer ocean (Baltic sea), a marginal segment of the outer
ocean (North sea, Irish sea, Weddell sea), or even the largest enclosed sea in the
world, the Mediterranean sea. In several of the cases just mentioned, the word ‘sea’
is often omitted in English when the body of water is named (e.g. the Caspian, the
Baltic, the Mediterranean).
17
Unfortunately, ‘sea’ is also effectively the only familiar English term available
with which to translate the other three words. The famous thesaurus of Roget in
modernized versions is of little help.
18
Accordingly, it is usual to find thalassa,
11 Or θάλαττα, thalatta, in Attic (Athenian) Greek.
12 e.g. Ps.-Aristotle, 3; Strabo, 6. 2. 1.
13 Dionysios Periegetes, 401 (poetic).
14 Strabo, 1. 3. 4.
15 e.g. Strabo, 16. 3. 2, kolpos meaning ‘gulf’, ‘bay’.
16 e.g. Agathemeros, 3. 12.
17 LSJ and Brill both translate θάλασσα (thalassa) as ‘sea’. For πόντος (pontos) Brill gives ‘sea,
open sea’, replicating LSJ’s ‘sea, esp. open sea’, after Homer ‘chiefly used of special seas [. . .] but
Hdt. has also ὁ πόντος’ [ho pontos] ‘for the sea, 4.99, 177’; at those places Herodotos describes
peninsulas as projecting ἐς τὸν πόντον, es ton ponton, ‘into the open sea’. For πέλαγος (pelagos)
LSJ gives ‘the sea, esp. high sea, open sea’, Brill ‘sea, usu. Open sea, deep sea’, which illustrates
the difficulty of distinguishing the last two in translation.
18 In the edition by Dutch (Roget and Dutch 1962), §343 Ocean includes ‘sea, blue water, salt w.,
brine, briny; waters, billows, saves, tide, wave; […] main, deep, deep sea; high seas’, but otherwise
contains mostly poetic, jocular, or technical terms. The shorter edition by Browning (Roget and
Browning 1982), §341 Ocean, offers a subset of the above.
Sun, Sea, and Sky: On Translating Directions (and Other Terms) in the Greek Geographers