“Translation is a battle that you enter into knowing in advance that you will come out of it defeated. Even if the enterprise is crowned with (any) success, losses are inevitable, and you will face your own limitations: it is impossible to completely defeat the original. And what to say about the translation of an ancient text: even if you can access the meaning of the words, you are deprived of their “experience”: their color, their sound, their associations, their resonances, everything that makes up their special meaning. life and power. Especially for the texts of the ancient drama, “silent” for us, since their performance pronunciation is completely lost. Translator Panayota Pantazi enthusiastically tells “K” about her translation work – from English, French and ancient Greek. This year he translated Iphigenia at Aulidis by Euripides directed by Themis Mumulidis.

“These are texts that reach us already indirectly, by those who over the centuries wrote them down, copied, “corrected” them, restored, commented on and interpreted them,” he adds, pointing out that the translation can be from five months up to five years. “You are called to read the text… knowing that while it is true that if there were no due dates, no translation would ever be completed, it is equally true that translations have an expiration date. Of course, there are translations that have stood the test of time – iconic ones like Guts’ Blood Wedding – but usually their fate must be transcended. The language is changing, the way we perceive humor, poetry is changing, the theater itself is changing,” he says.

Speaking about the translation of Iphigenia, Ms. Pantazi expands the discussion about the difficulties of translating the ancient drama. “There are three fronts in front of you. First, it is a prototype language. This certainly suggests friction with the ancient language and script. Today we have powerful tools to navigate this environment. The second front is the language of translation, one’s own. The most merciless field, not only because it is the field of one’s own “conviction”.

But here you are not alone. You have as allies all those who were tested in the ancient drama, the ways they faced problems, the analogies they invented, the solutions they gave, even the traditions they created. For example, the Solomonic phrase “sweet life and black death” in the petition of Iphigenia tends to become a tradition. I followed it because I can’t find a better rendering – and for playing intertextuality. The third is the theatrical front, presenting its demands. In addition, when translating a specific performance, the translation cannot but be formed in close connection with the conditions of the direction. Each directorial approach is entitled to its own translation,” he notes.

Ms. Pantazi graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Athens and also attended a two-year program at the Center for Literary Translation of the French Institute with teachers, among others, Tito Patrikios, Andreas Staikos, Chrysa Prokopakis, Stratis Paschalis. She is one of the few female translators – we counted three in a row, not sure if anyone was forgotten – of the ancient Greek drama presented at Epidaurus. “When translating Iphigenia, I realized that I could automatically name dozens of translators of the ancient drama, but very few female translators. Perhaps because the role of women in Greek society is more complex and therefore very few can devote themselves exclusively to translation. According to him, “translating requires dedication, and it’s hard to make a living doing it alone.”