polutrope

So I'm "reading" my blessèdly short assignment in Antigone for tomorrow, as you do, and I decided to run some of it through google translate, to see how much of it it would get. And of course, it didn't get all of it - not surprising, considering that it doesn't usually translate all or even most German words. It translated

ὦ πρέσβυ, πάντες ὥστε τοξόται σκοποῦ
τοξεύετ’ ἀνδρὸς τοῦδε, κοὐδὲ μαντικῆς
ἄπρακτος ὑμῖν εἰμι· τῶν δ’ ὑπαὶ γένους
ἐξημπόλημαι κἀμπεφόρτισμαι πάλαι.
κερδαίνετ’, ἐμπολᾶτε τἀπὸ Σάρδεων
ἤλεκτρον, εἰ βούλεσθε, καὶ τὸν Ἰνδικὸν
χρυσόν· τάφῳ δ’ ἐκεῖνον οὐχὶ κρύψετε,
οὐδ’ εἰ θέλουσ’, οἱ Ζηνὸς αἰετοὶ βορὰν

as

ὦ ambassador, so everyone toxotai purpose
toxefet Men far, koude oracular
Amy inactive ymin; our d ypai genus
eximpolimai kampefortismai old.
kerdainet 'Ebola tapo Sardis
electricity, if voulesthe, and Indian
gold; τάφῳ d ouchi him hide,
oud Hey thelous' The Zinos aietoi Boranes

.

Clearly even if I wanted to cheat, this would not be the way to do it. But I really expected it to be able to translate less of it - the word for "inactive," for example has stayed the same for 2400 years - not even just phonetically the same: it's written the same way. And that's just really cool.

---
OK, also "'Ebola tapo Sardis electricity" is kind of hilarious.