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.
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