The same word is also the kappa in Phi Beta Kappa (for some reason, I can't enter it in Greek and get it displayed properly in preview.)

It seems to me that if one wanted a poetic translation, "adrift" would be more appropriate than "drifting"; I think it more clearly points up the implicit analogy to sailing.

Good point. I agree.

Sounds like we're in "Alexandria Quartet" territory. I realize that Durrell's series is flawed but I loved it both times I read it. The second time the affectations and pretentiousness of various of the the characters were more easily perceived; when I was youg I thought I was supposed to be taking them at face value.

Unruly?

"Unruly" is good too!

Unruly?

Yes, that is good, I think.

The rudderless ship of state. Untamed towns. Unmalleable municipalites.

Interesting post!

A nit: 'ungoverned' is a valid translation for 'akiverniti', but I believe 'ungovernable' is not. The closest I can get to 'governable' is the awkward 'kivernisimi' (just 12 google hits, some of them in scare quotes), and I can't think of a way to express 'ungovernable' with a single word.

Thanks—I was hoping an actual Greek would come along, and I'm glad there weren't any more serious objections. But my largest Greek-English dictionary gives "ungovernable" as a translation, with (λαός) to explain the context of that use; are you sure it couldn't be translated that way when speaking of a people?

It's worth remembering that titles are not controlled, in general, by authors or translators, but by publishers: they are considered an element of marketing.

There is a French novel, La Jalousie (not the Robbe-Grillet work -- I forget the author); many years ago I read an essay the translator wrote about translating it. He says that he tried to get the title The Blind, capturing not only the narrator-cuckold's blindness to what is happening with his wife, but also the literal window blinds that (half-)conceal the adultery from him. But the publisher insisted on Jealousy, presumably for fear the reading public would think it was a book about the visually impaired.

I can't be certain -- it's the way I understand it, but I've been away from Greece for years, and I have no linguistic training.

In fact one out of the three dictionaries I could find at www.greek-language.gr , the Georgaka dictionary, does give 'ungoverned, unruled or ungovernable; badly governed; difficult to govern' as a sense. The usage samples it gives (starting with 'akiverniti politeia: ungoverned city' !) are not helpful though: None of them seems to me to convey the stricter 'ungovernable', beyond the more general 'ungoverned'.

I also don't think there's any general rule to guide us here: akse*xastos, formed in the same way as akivernitos, does mean both 'unforgettable' and 'unforgotten', and in fact the -able sense is the primary one.

I am reminded of a Chinese slogan (song lyric?) from the cultural revolution era -- "sailing the sea depends / on the helmsman, Chairman Mao." it doesn't refer to him as "chairman," a political term, but relies on metaphor to get the point across. that's why i prefer "rudderless" as a rendering of akivirnitis. arguably, poetry is more about metaphor than particular choice of words. :-)

"Rudderless" is good too. Either that or "unruly" would be far superior to "drifting," which doesn't really connote anything at all except "vague poetic descriptive haze."

Actually, la derive is used quite a lot in a political context, although it does not exactly mean "ungoverned".