Translating Early Medieval Poetry

by Tom Birkett

tors and commentators are indeed often very combative: in an infamous essay on

  ‘Translating Old English Elegies’ in 1983, the distinguished translator and theorist

  of translation Burton Raffel shows great pugnacity towards all existing translations,

  extending at one point to his own.12 So one of the many things to be grateful for

  in the contributions to this book is a positiveness of approach. In dealing with the

  puzzle of the attraction for the Argentinian Borges of Old English and Old Norse,

  Toswell concludes that he is ‘a kind of enthusiast ... a passionate lover of the material who wants to engage with it and should not have to answer for misunderstandings

  or extravagances’.13 This seems to be true – and even if it is not, it is a welcome view in a field which is often so contentious.

  The reason for such pugnacity of course is that there is no possibility of a univer-

  sal y agreed ideal poetic translation, just as there can be no perfectly achieved

  equivalence of the original in a modern version. Most published translators of

  Old English poetry have had the experience of teaching it in an academic context.

  Traditional y this has required a high degree of literary equivalence: of ‘word for

  word’ in Alfredian terms. The ideal there that we have all parroted was that there

  8 See pp. 35–9.

  9 Published in Electric Light (London, 2001), pp. 62–3.

  10 William Weaver, ‘The Process of Translation’, in The Craft of Translation, ed. J. Biguenet and R. Schulte (London, 1989), pp. 117–24, at p. 119. See p. 135.

  11 See p. 122.

  12 Burton Raffel, ‘Translating Old English Elegies’, in The Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research, ed. Martin Green (Cranbury, NJ, London and Mississauga, ON, 1983), pp. 31–45.

  13 See p. 74.

  216

  Bernard O’Donoghue

  should be something in the new version to account for everything in the original,

  and that there should be nothing in the new version that was not equivalent to an

  identifiable detail in the original. But, excellent as this is as an explanation of the exact meaning of the original (Alfred’s ‘sense for sense’), it is clearly an aesthetical y limiting principle for writers of the creative ambitions of Borges or Morgan

  or Heaney: a distinction that arises repeatedly in this wonderful y stimulating and

  thought-provoking book. I had been teaching ‘The Wanderer’ with conscientious

  concern for Ó Siadhail’s ‘systematic view of language and its grammar’ for forty

  years before publishing a freer modern version in 2011.14 I found the Anglo-Saxon

  poem – which is of course one of the greatest mid-length lyrics in English – to work

  wonderful y with application to the modern era, negotiating with it in the various

  ways that Toswell quotes from Eco in the first paragraph here. The flexibility of

  translation, evident in the various perspectives taken in the chapters here, is perhaps the best example of the dubiousness of the distinction between ‘creative’ writing and

  other, more pragmatic genres. And of course the term is capacious as well as flexible: Elizabeth Boyle suggests that her extension of the corpus of medieval poetry in Irish

  exposes a limitation in modern aesthetics; Heather O’Donoghue finds undeniable

  echoes of the figure of Brynhildr in the Victorian prose of Hardy’s Return of the

  Native and Gareth Lloyd Evans traces the explicit reference of Old Norse poetry in Michael Hirst’s cinematic Vikings. We move here well beyond the constraints of word for word or even sense for sense. But we are clearly still in a world that is

  central to the understanding of cultural history and how the old both enriches and

  finds a place in the new.

  14 Bernard O’Donoghue, ‘The Wanderer’, in Farmers Cross (London, 2011), pp. 26–9.

  A Translation of Riddle 15 from the Exeter Book

  Bertha Rogers

  The cover image Riddle 15 – Fox (2016) is reproduced by kind permission of the artist, Bertha Rogers. The following translation of Riddle 15 by Rogers accompanies the image.

  Hals is min hwit ond heafod fealo,

  I am a warrior with a white throat.

  sidan swa some. Swift ic eom on feþe,

  My head and sides are tawny.

  beadowæpen bere. Me on bæce standað

  Two ears tower above my eyes.

  her swylce swe on hleorum. Hlifiað tu

  My back and cheeks are bristle-barbed.

  earan ofer eagum. Ordum ic steppe

  My gait is fleet, my winged flanks.

  in grene græs. Me bið gyrn witod,

  I easily thread, on my fighting feet,

  gif mec onhæle an onfindeð

  green staves. Yet I sing a stricken song

  wælgrim wiga, þær ic wic buge,

  when the death-hound comes sniffing

  bold mid bearnum, ond ic bide þær

  my scant home. Then I hide my children,

  mid geoguðcnosle. Hwonne gæst cume

  and we bide in a love-circle

  to durum minum, him biþ deað witod;

  while doom seeks our covert door;

  forþon ic sceal of eðle eaforan mine

  it moves above our trembling heads.

  forhtmod fergan, fleame nergan.

  That death-bringer, fearful and foul,

  Gif he me æfterweard ealles weorþeð--

  wishes to fetch us al , yawping,

  hine berað breost— ic his bidan ne dear,

  to our slaughter— so, handing

  reþes on geruman— (nele þæt ræd teale)-- and footing it, I gather my brood,

  ac ic sceal fromlice feþemundum

  swiftly secure a secret way

  þurh steapne beorg stræte wyrcan.

  out of the steep slope, into the light,

  Eaþe ic mæg freora feorh genergan,

  where I scurry my dear urchins

  gif ic mægburge mot mine gelædan

  from hurt’s intent. Free of my babes,

  on degolne weg þurh dune þyrel

  I am a fortress against death.

  swæse ond gesibbe; ic me siþþan ne þearf He may scent me on narrow paths,

  wælhwelpes wig wiht onsittan.

  but I will turn, whirling, tooth and claw

  gif se niðsceaþa nearwe stige

  battle-slipping that frenzied creature

  me on swaþe seceþ, ne tosæleþ him

  the slay stroke— severing,

  on þam gegnpaþe guþgemotes,

  through touch and grip, his hated neck.

  siþþan ic þurh hylles hrof geræce,

  Through hil ’s roof I will stay the course,

  ond þurh hest hrino hildepilum

  fighting to the last. It is then

  laðgewinnum, þam þe ic longe fleah.

  I will see the whites of his eyes.

  Bibliography

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  Barmby, Beatrice, Gísli Súrsson: A Drama (Westminster, 1900)

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  4 (Dublin, 1965)

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  —— ‘Seafarer’, Medium Aevum 3 (1934), 1–6

  Borges, Jorge Luis, Las Kenningar (Buenos Aires, 1933)

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  —— Autobiografía (Buenos Aires, 1999)

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  —— trans. M. J. Toswel , Ancient Germanic Literatures, Old English Publications 1 (Tempe, AZ, 2014)

  Borges, Jorge Luis, and Margarita Guerrero, Manual de Zoología fantástica (México City, 1957)

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  Brennan, Marie, ‘The Waking of Angantyr’, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 2, http://www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com/?p=304 (2009). Accessed June 2016

  Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist, trans., The Poetic Edda (New York, 1916)

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  Simpson (Cambridge, 1924), pp. 4–6

  Burrows, Hannah, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, in Poetry in fornaldarsögur, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8 (Turnhout, forthcoming) Butt, George, ‘Hervor and Anganture’, in Poems, 2 vols (Kidderminster, 1793), II, pp. 111–17

  Campbel , J. F., Leabhar na Feinne: Heroic Gaelic Bal ads Col ected in Scotland Chiefly from 1512 to 1871 (London, 1872; facsimile repr., Shannon, 1972)

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  Carson, Ciaran, trans., The Táin (London, 2007)

  Céitinn, S., Foras Feasa ar Éirinn: the History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating, D. D. , 4 vols, Irish Texts Society 4, 8, 9, 15, ed. and trans. D. Comyn and P. S. Dinneen (London, 1902–14) Charles d’Orléans, Charles d’Orléans: Poésies, vol. 2, ed. Pierre Champion (Paris, 1983) Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn, ed. Larry D. Benson (Oxford, 1988) Clarke, Austin, ‘The Son of Learning’, Selected Plays (New York, 2005), pp. 1–42

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  Corder, Frederick, The Sword of Argantyr: A Dramatic Cantata in Four Scenes (London and Manchester, 1889)

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