Translating Early Medieval Poetry
Page 17
second translation that I shall be concerned here in the first instance, though in
quoting from it I shall reproduce in a footnote to each quotation the corresponding
part of the verse translation.
In discussing their style, Tolkien takes these lines as il ustrative of the poem’s
21 From the most recent edition, see Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 4th edn, ed. R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles with a foreword by Helen Damico, Toronto Old English Series 21 (Toronto, 2008), pp. xxix, 76, it appears that the correct number of lines in the poem is in all probability 3181 rather than 3182. This edition ( Klaeber’s Beowulf, 4th edn) retains the line numbering of earlier editions, however.
22 See Campbel , ‘Old English Epic Style’, pp. 20–3.
23 Tolkien, ‘Prefatory Remarks’, pp. xxxvii–xliii.
24 R. W. Chambers, Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn, 3rd edn, with a supplement by C. L. Wrenn (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 1–2.
25 Tolkien, ‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xxxi.
26 Ibid., pp. xxxviii–xliii.
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‘parallelism’, whereby ‘things, actions, or processes, are often depicted by separate
strokes, juxtaposed, and frequently neither joined by an expressed link, nor subor-
dinated’. By ‘an expressed link’ he means a co-ordinating conjunction such as ‘and’,
and by ‘separate strokes’ he means ‘single parallel words’ or ‘sentences’ (he could
have added ‘phrases’).27 His examples from the lines in question may be quoted,
together with the relevant parts of his word-by-word translation. In quoting the
translation I give in full the words ‘boat’, ‘waves’, ‘men’ and ‘sea’, which he designates by their initial letters. First lines 210b–211a:
flota wæs on yðum, boat was on waves
bat under beorge.28
boat
under
hil .29
It will be noticed that the second of these two half-lines parallels the first syntac-
tical y apart from the fact that wæs, the past tense of the verb ‘to be’, is lacking in the second. A degree of semantic parallelism is also present: beorge (‘hil ’) could equal y well be translated ‘cliff’, and it is clear from the first half-line that the second means in this instance that the boat is below (‘under’) the cliff, which could be understood as meaning ‘on the water’. Thus the second half-line, lacking the verb wæs, summarises, with slight variation, the information given in the first, and the two half-lines may be taken together as an example of the summarising parallel, in this case what
Campbell has called ‘a compression of a preceding phrase’,30 which is by no means
uncommon in Beowulf.31
Tolkien’s second example is lines 212b–213a:
Streamas
wundon, waves
rolled
sund
wið
sande. sea
against
sand.32
Here we have, in the first half-line, a noun in the nominative plural functioning
as the subject of an intransitive verb. In the second half-line this noun is paral-
leled by a noun in the singular, also in the nominative and having much the same
meaning; the verb is not paralleled in the second half-line, however, but is replaced
by an adverbial. This is an example of what may be called the partial parallel, a
parallel consisting of two essential y coextensive elements in which only part of the
first element is paralleled in the second, and something new is added to replace
what is omitted.33 This, too, is common in Beowulf.34
Tolkien’s third example is lines 214b–215a:
27 Ibid., p. xlii.
28 Quotations from Beowulf are from Klaeber’s Beowulf, 4th edn.
29 Tolkien’s ‘free’ verse translation (‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xxxi) reads: ‘On the tide floated
/ under bank their boat.’
30 Campbel , ‘Old English Epic Style’, p. 21.
31 See Rory McTurk, ‘Variation in Beowulf and the Poetic Edda: A Chronological Experiment’, in The Dating of Beowulf, ed. Colin Chase, Toronto Old English Series 6
(Toronto, 1981; rpt with a new afterword by Nicholas Howe, 1997), pp. 141–60, see pp. 148–9.
32 Tolkien’s ‘free’ verse translation (‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xxxi) reads: ‘Breakers turning /
spurned the shingle.’
33 Campbel , ‘Old English Epic Style’, pp. 20–1.
34 McTurk, ‘Variation’, p. 146.
Beowulf
83
beorhte
frætwe bright
trappings
guðsearo
geatolic; war-gear
wellmade.35
This is a clear example of what Campbell cal s the balanced parallel (‘The
simplest type of parallel’), in which ‘an element general y double is repeated by one
syntactical y equivalent and of approximately equal bulk’.36 It may be noted that
this particular example is chiastic, with the order of the words in the first element
(adjective, noun) reversed in the second (noun, adjective), and that Tolkien’s trans-
lation presents it as such. This is not a defining feature of the type, however, of which there are many examples in Beowulf, a good number of them chiastic but not al , as I have shown elsewhere.37
Tolkien’s fourth example is at lines 221–223a; the relevant words are given here
in bold type:
Ðæt ða liðende land gesawon, that those voyagers land saw
brimclifu blican beorgas steape, sea-cliffs gleaming, hills steep, side sænæssas; long sea-capes.38
Here, as Tolkien notes, ‘ land is elaborated in 222–23 as cliffs by the breaking waves, steep hil s, and capes jutting into the sea.’39 It is in fact an example of an extended expanded parallel: extended, because what is expressed by the simplex word land
is first expanded by the compound word brimclifu (exemplifying the expanded
parallel in its simplest form),40 but then expanded further in the two half-lines 222b and 223a, which, it may be noted, form an example of the balanced parallel (here
in chiastic form), showing how one type of parallel may combine with another. The
chiasmus in these two half-lines is faithful y reflected in Tolkien’s translation.
Tolkien goes on to discuss lines 224b–228, which include a further example,
printed here in bold:
Þanon
up
hraðe
thence
up
quickly
Wedera leode on wang stigon, (of) Wederas men on plain strode,
sæwudu sældon, syrcan hrysedon, sea-timber [= boat] roped – shirts rattled, guðgewædo; gode þancedon war-raiment – God thanked
þæs þe him yþlade eaðe wurdon that (for) them wave-passage easy proved.41
It is Tolkien’s word-by-word translation that is quoted here (with a comma added
after ‘rattled’), as in the previous examples. Sæwudu (‘boat’), it should be noted, 35 Tolkien’s ‘free’ verse translation (‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xxxi) reads (from lines 213b–
215a): ‘Splendid armour / they bore aboard, / in her bosom piling / well-forged weapons.’
36 Campbel , ‘Old English Epic Style’, p. 20.
37 Rory McTurk, ‘The Balanced Parallel in Beowulf’, Leeds Studies in English n.s. 37
(= Essays for Joyce Hill on her Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Mary Swan) (2006), 63–73.
38 Tolkien’s ‘free’ verse translation (‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xxxi) reads: ‘those seafarers /
saw before them / shore-cliffs shimmering / and sheer mountains, / wide cap
es by the waves.’
39 Tolkien, ‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xlii.
40 McTurk, ‘Variation’, p. 151.
41 Tolkien’s ‘free’ verse translation (‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xxxi) reads: ‘Then ashore swiftly / they leaped to land, / lords of Gothland, / bound fast their boat. / Their byrnies rattled, /grim gear of war. / God thanked they then / that their sea-passage /safe had proven.’
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is the object of sældon (‘(they) roped’), which may not be clear from the translation. Tolkien raises in a footnote the question of whether hrysedon (‘rattled’) should be understood as transitive ‘(they) rattled’, with syrcan (‘shirts’), paralleled by guðgewædo (‘war-raiment’), as its object in the accusative;42 both words have the same form in the accusative as in the nominative. Whatever the answer to this
question,43 there is no doubt that syrcan and guðgewædo, whether taken as subject or object, together provide an example of the expanded parallel in its simplest form,
i.e. simplex word paralleled by a compound: compare the case of land and brimclifu in lines 221–222, quoted above. Tolkien’s main concern here, however, is to show that
the verb hrysedon, if taken as intransitive, interrupts ‘without any connecting word’, a sequence of three verbs – stigon (‘strode’), sældon (‘roped’), þancedon (‘thanked’)
– which all have the subject leode (‘men’) (as hrysedon would if taken as transitive), and are themselves unconnected by any co-ordinating or subordinating conjunction. He does not use the word ‘apposition’ or any of its derivatives, but is drawing
attention here to the essential y appositive nature of the style of Beowulf, implying that in translation it would strictly speaking be wrong to introduce co-ordination or
subordination where it is not present in the original.44
The last two examples given show that parallelism is not always a matter of
immediate juxtaposition: land at line 221b and syrcan at line 226b are separated from their expanded parallels by the verbs gesawon and hrysedon respectively. All the examples show that there need not and cannot always be exact semantic correspondence between the elements of a parallel. For a parallel to be identified as such
it is enough that its first element is ‘sufficiently characterized for understanding’,45
and that its second and any subsequent elements could be removed without detri-
ment to the syntax or the essential meaning of the passage in which it occurs.46 With
this in mind, we might make a case for lines 225b–6a in the last passage quoted as
il ustrating a type of parallel not so far mentioned: the parallel of sense but not of syntax.47 If it can be accepted that there is in the context little essential difference between the acts of striding ashore ( on wang stigon) and mooring the ship with a rope ( sæwudu sældon), it could be claimed that this is an example of such a parallel: an adverbial plus an intransitive verb paralleled by an object plus the transitive
verb requiring it. A more secure example of this type of parallel might be Beowulf 42 Tolkien, ‘Prefatory Remarks’, p. xlii, note 11.
43 It is clear from the recent publication of his translation of Beowulf as a whole, and its accompanying commentary, that Tolkien came to regard hrysedon here as transitive. See Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation, pp. 19 and 194–5.
44 See Tolkien, ‘Prefatory Remarks’, pp. xli–ii. On the appositive style of Beowulf see Fred C. Robinson, Beowulf and the Appositive Style (Knoxville, TN, 1985), and further (on Beowulf and the Poetic Edda) Roderick Walter (=Rory) McTurk, ‘The Poetic Edda and the Appositive Style’, in The Seventh International Saga Conference […]. Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. Spoleto 4–10 September 1988, ed. Teresa Pàroli (Spoleto, 1990), pp. 321–37.
45 D. G. Calder, ‘The Study of Style in Old English Poetry: A Historical Introduction’, in Old English Poetry: Essays on Style, ed. Daniel G. Calder, Contributions of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies 10 (Berkeley, CA, 1979), pp. 1–65, see p. 35.
46 Compare McTurk, ‘Balanced Parallel’, p. 63. See also, however, McTurk, ‘The Poetic Edda’, pp. 321–2.
47 See Campbel , ‘Old English Epic Style’, p. 21.
Beowulf
85
lines 632b–633a, which I give here in bold with my own literal translation (and with
bracketed words added for clarification):
þa
ic
on holm gestah, when
I
onto sea ascended,
sæbat gesæt (when
a)
sea-boat (I) occupied
Here an adverbial plus an intransitive verb is paralleled by an object and the transi-
tive verb requiring it, thus showing a parallel of sense but not of syntax.
One further type of parallel, not exemplified in Tolkien’s chosen passage but
common enough in Beowulf, may be mentioned: a compound word paralleled by
a two-word phrase.48 A clear example of this occurs early on in Beowulf, at lines 16b–17a (my translation):
Him
þæs
liffrea To
him,
for
that,
(the)
Life-lord,
wuldres wealdend woroldare
forgeaf:
Glory’s Ruler, world(ly)-honour gave.
It will be noticed that there is a semantic correspondence between each element
in the compound and one of the two words forming the phrase that parallels it.
Cases of two-word parallels to compound words which do not show this corre-
spondence are best regarded as examples of the expanded parallel.
While Campbel ’s words ‘a compression of a preceding phrase’, used above to
describe Tolkien’s first example, the summarising parallel at lines 210b–211a of
Beowulf, are an accurate description of that example, it may be noted that the summarising parallel in its simplest form consists of a compound word paralleled
by a simplex one: the opposite, in fact, of the expanded parallel in its simplest form, noted in the case of land … brimclifu (‘land … sea-cliffs’), above. I give the example of Beowulf lines 2340–41a, again with my literal translation:
þæt him holtwudu he(lpan) ne meahte, that him forest-wood help not could lind
wið
lige.
–
(a)
linden (shield) – against fire.
In other words, ‘that a wooden shield could not help him...’. The summarising
parallel is thus best defined as ‘a compression of a preceding word or phrase’49 and
the expanded parallel as an expansion of a preceding word or phrase. It should be
noted, however, with Campbel ’s concept of ‘bulk’ in mind (see his description of the
balanced parallel, quoted above), that while brimclifu is clearly ‘bulkier’ than land (and lind less so than holtwudu), there is in Tolkien’s third example above, Beowulf lines 214b–215a, an approximate equality of ‘bulk’ between the two elements of what
is identified there as an example of the balanced parallel: each element in fact constitutes a half-line of verse. The fact that each of the two simplex words in the first
element, beorhte and frætwe, finds in the second element a compound equivalent, geatolic and guðsearo respectively, does not disqualify the parallel as a whole as an example of the balanced type. These two expanded parallels are subservient to the
balanced parallel which together they constitute. By much the same token, lines
222b–223a of Beowulf ( beorgas steape, side sænæssas), noted above as a balanced 48 See Campbel , ‘Old English Epic Style’, p. 21, and McTurk, ‘Variation’, pp. 146–7 and p. 146, note 44.
49 See McTurk, ‘Variation’, p. 148.
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/> parallel participating in an extended expanded parallel, is none the less an example
of a balanced parallel for the fact that beorgas in the first element is paralleled by a compound word ( sænæssas) in the second.
It was noted above that Tolkien’s prefatory remarks on Clark Hal ’s translation of
Beowulf, which include his own literal translation and discussion of lines 210–228, were first published in 1940. His prose translation of Beowulf as a whole, published as recently as 2014, was in fact complete by 1926, as its editor, Christopher Tolkien, shows;50 I refer to it here as the 1926 translation. I feel safe in doing so even though the text of the translation as published in 2014 is based on a typescript of the 1926
translation made by Christopher Tolkien in c.1940–42, and incorporating some
changes made by his father.51 These changes do not, however, affect the passages
quoted and discussed in the present essay except in one instance, that of the verb
hrysedon (‘rattled’) (as translated by Tolkien in 1940, see above), already referred to and further discussed in what follows.
It has to be said that the 1926 translation of the whole poem is very different from
the literal translation of lines 210–228, published in 1940. Whereas the latter translation brings out clearly the parallelism in the original, this is not always the case in the 1926 translation. ‘Boat was on waves, boat under hil ’, quoted above from the
1940 translation as indicative of the summarising parallel in 210b–211a of Beowulf, appears in the 1926 translation as: ‘Afloat upon the waves was the boat beneath the
cliffs’, where the element of summary in the original is lost.52 The parallelism of sund with Streamas in the partial parallel of lines 212b–213a is conveyed convincingly in the 1940 translation, quoted above: ‘waves rolled, sea against sand’, but not in the
1926 translation: ‘the streaming seas swirled upon the sand’, where the present parti-
ciple ‘streaming’ introduces an element of subordination not present in the original.
The balanced parallel of lines 214b–215a, reproduced in 1940 as ‘bright trappings,
war-gear wellmade’, as shown above, appears in 1926 as: ‘their bright harness, their
cunning gear of war’, which conveys, it is true, the parallelism of the original, but
not its chiastic ordering. The expanded parallel of land in lines 222–223a also finds expression in the 1926 translation, where it appears as follows: ‘those sailors saw