The Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry Project

Hello again!

2008-06-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have been negligent in updating lately. My apologies.

The first bit of news is that the Elene translation page is now receiving updates. The first 18 lines are already there. I'm trying to discover the voice of the poem, and get the hang of Cynewulf's style. I absolutely do not want this poem to sound like it was written by the Andreas-poet. Guthlac is also floating around in the mix, and will probably start getting some action as well (page to come).

The second item is the ASF2 panel went really well. I have notes to provide a more fleshed-out account which I will be working on.

And, third, the Andreas translation is receiving frequent edits as I start to hone the language and style. One thing that has been pointed out to me is that there are way too many commas -- so that's being fixed. Also, there are attempts at preserving kennings that need a lot of work to sound interesting, rather than just awkward.

ASF2 PT 2 -- The Translations

2008-05-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

So here are the translations that I will be discussing during the roundtable at this week's Anglo-Saxon Futures conference. My main goal in translating the Ruin was to attempt to back off of the heavy-handed moralization that often gets read into the poem, which itself avoids that sort of language, and preserve the absolute vacuum of agency that exists within it. The poem is ambient and imagistic; it crackles with the energy of words that do not themselves signify actions or interntions. As in my Andreas translation, the lines tend to be long and spill over. For the mangled parts, I decided to try to accommodate the appearance of the poem from the manuscript. I had been staring at the facsimile of the pages reproduced in Anne Klinck's The Old English Elegies: A Critical Edition and Genre Study, and became fascinated with the disrupted architecture of the mise-en-page.

The Ruin

These wall-stones are wondrous —
crumpled by calamity, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants
corrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins.
Ice at the joints has unroofed the barred-gates, sheared
the scarred storm-walls have disappeared—
the years have gnawed them from beneath. A grave-grip holds
the master-crafters, decrepit and departed, in the ground’s harsh
grasp, until one hundred generations of human-nations have
trod past. Subsequently this wall, lichen-grey and rust-stained,
often experiencing one kingdom after another,
standing still under storms, high and wide—
it failed—

The wine-halls moulder still, hewn as if by weapons,
penetrated [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
savagely pulverized [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
[XXXX] shined [XXXXXXXXXX]
[XXXX] adroit ancient edifice [XXXXX]
[XXXXXXX] bowed with crusted-mud —

The strong-purposed mind was urged to a keen-minded desire
in concentric circles; the stout-hearted bound
wall-roots wondrously together with wire. The halls of the city
once were bright: there were many bath-houses,
a lofty treasury of peaked roofs, many troop-roads, many mead-halls
filled with human-joys until that terrible chance changed all that.

Days of misfortune arrived—blows fell broadly—
death seized all those sword-stout men—their idol-fanes were laid waste —
the city-steads perished. Their maintaining multitudes fell to the earth.
For that the houses of red vaulting have drearied and shed their tiles,
these roofs of ringed wood. This place has sunk into ruin, been broken
into heaps,

There once many men, glad-minded and gold-bright,
adorned in gleaming, proud and wine-flushed, shone in war-tackle;
There one could look upon treasure, upon silver, upon ornate jewelry,
upon prosperity, upon possession, upon precious stones,
upon the illustrious city of the broad realm.

Stone houses standing here, where a hot stream was cast
in a wide welling; a wall enfolding everything in its bright bosom,
where there were baths, heated at its heart. That was convenient,
when they let pour forth [XXXXXXXXX] over the hoary stones
countless heated streams [XXXXXXXXXXX] until the ringed pool
hot [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] where there were baths
Then is [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. That is a kingly thing—
a house [XXXXX],
a city

Durham is a different little bear: it shouldn't look or read like the Ruin or one of the narrative poems. For this one, I decided to stay with the basic line structure posited for Anglo-Saxon verse, but incorporated minor variations as I went. The poem has a breathy, accumulative, and... and-kind of structure that gives it an informal, casual and friendly feel.

Durham

Is this city famous throughout Britain’s realm,
of many steps founded, the stones without
wondrously have waxed. The Wear flows around it,
a river strong of wave, and therein dwell
myriad kind of fishes, mingled in the flood.
And there is grown up within a great wood-fastness;
where dwell within the city many wild beasts—
in the deep dales deer innumerable.

Also in that city there is well-known among her sons,
the mercy-fast, the blessed Cuthberg, and the head of the pure king,
Oswald, Lion of the English,* and Bishop Aidan,
Eadberh and Eadfrith, worthy companions.
There is among them, Aethelwold the bishop
and the famous scholar Bede, and Basil the abbot,
that taught the virginal Cuthbert in his youth fervently,
and Cuthbert took well to his lessons —

There dwells among the blessed in that minster also
relics uncountable,
where many are worthied, just as the Book says to do —
in their company a man of God can await his glory.

* or perhaps, Shelter (hleo) of the English, as in the common heroic epithet, hleo wiggendra, found in Andreas and Beowulf.

So we'll see how these go over at the roundtable. I'm really looking forward to learning a lot about how to translate the verse.

Andreas complete

2008-05-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

At last, the first draft of Andreas is complete. All the lines have been posted to the Andreas page.

Now begins the exciting process of reading and re-reading the translation, checking and rechecking the extant texts and translations, and confirming definitions and contexts of the words. Oh yes, and beginning Elene.

Please send along any suggestions or comments you have about the translations.

Update once again

2008-05-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

I have reorganized the sections once again, so that each fitt or part of the poem is in its own post -- again, for ease of reading and commentary. Also, new lines have been added to 1629, completing the flood all the way up to the resurrection of the slain Mermedonians.

That's less than a 100 lines to go. And yes, I have been working on my dissertation. :)

Anglo-Saxon Futures 2

2008-05-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

Next week I'll be participating in a translation workshop at the Anglo-Saxon Futures 2 conference at King's College, London. This is my second trip to the conference, which promises to great fun again -- there will be papers by my advisor Kathleen Davis, Tricia Dailey, Hal Momma, Eileen Joy (who I'm super-psyched to meet), and Gillian Overing, among others, and the meeting is always very fun.

My panel will be on translating Old English poetry, focusing on "The Ruin" and "Durham," and led by Marijane Osborn. Although, the session will probably focus most on "The Ruin," the pairing is very cool. I've always been interested in how "The Ruin" is over-burdened by critical pieties, that lament for the shattered and scattered condition of OE poetic manuscripts. "Durham" seems like the perfect antidote for the austerity and dead-ends of "The Ruin." It's chatty and open-ended, enthusiastic about the multiplicities it enumerates, and active and vigorous in its language. It's hardly as pyrotechnic as "The Ruin," but it shows OE verse to be quickened and participating in linguistic change in post-1066 England. Past and present have a continuity, a relation of something other than nostalgia or melancholia, in the "Durham" that "The Ruin" does not seem to.

I hope that we can break down some that fusty edifice that contains "The Ruin" and free up its voice so that its formidable poetic innovation and energy can be revealed in a new way. I have always felt that the poem plays perhaps a bit too well into the traditional medievalist pose of focusing on Christian exegetics, where everything is an expression of contemptus mundi, and the use of wyrde twice in the poem forces the entire thing into a tried-and-(therefore-has-to-be)-true Boethian, Ælfredian frame.

I have also been wondering about the relationships that can be made between the ruins of Andreas and those of "The Ruin." It seems to me that the saint's life shows that (esp. in the animated statue episode (ll. 706-801, or in the final flood (esp. 1489b-1523a)) ruins and old buildings have a productive, two-way, relationship with the present. The eald enta geweorc can be spoken to by St. Andrew (He wið anne þæra... mæðel gehede (1495-6)), and he can expect them to give him an answer. Also, at the structural emblem of the old world, the Temple in Jerusalem (a building that described as heah ond horn-geap, just like Heorot) contains an image of a timeless world, the statues of the Seraphim and Cherubim that are "þæs bremestan þe mid þam burg-warum/ in þære ceastre is" [the most illustrious of angel-kind that there is,
among the citizens in that city] (718-9); a representation of an eternal world that will seek out and revivify the past to act on the present time, in the form of the buried corpses of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (edniwinga andweard cuman [to come forth into the present renewed] (783)). In both cases, the past that is decayed and buried is renewable, recyclable and able to be reinscribed with the terms of life now. Ruins in Andreas do not just sit still, mouldering and tottering and fading away: they can explode with life and action at any minute.

This is what I imagine could be part of "The Ruin" -- ruined places are not always waste; they grow up new cities in and around, and on top of, the old stones. The walls of Durham, for instance, stanas ymbutan/ wundrum gewæxen [the stones without/wondrously have waxed] (2-3) -- doubtlessly remnants of Roman times but that are still alive -- are shown in the lyric to be places of multiplicity and abundance, of living things that flourish now (the fishes and forest creatures of lines 5 and 8), and the unarimeda reliquia [countless relics] in the city's churches contain the promise of new life and everlasting life.

I will perhaps post my translations here soon, but they need a bit of time to dry -- it's not like I've ever been bashful to post first drafts here before, but I'm a bit unsure about the voice being right.

Update: 1206-1359

2008-04-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

Another batch of lines have been posted to the Andreas translation, completing the sixth movement and entering the seventh. With only 400 lines to go, I'm getting a bit giddy.

Slight changes

2008-04-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

I have split the Andreas translation into eight pieces, one per post, in order to break that increasingly large block of text into more manageable pieces. These divisions do not have basis in the manuscript presentation, but breaking a long poems into chapters, based on the judgment of the poem's thematic units, seems acceptable.

At this point, I am very nearly done -- with only parts seven through ten yet to be completed (Seven will concern Andrew's torments and his confrontation with the devil, eight the final day of torment, nine the narrator's pause and the flood, and ten Andrew's victory and the poem's conclusion).

I'm thinking the next poem will be Elene: the similarities to Andreas in theme, genre, language and presentation make it the obvious choice, really. Plus it's only 1300 lines long. So you will shortly see a new link to follow in the sidebar.

Cheers!

More and more updates...

2008-04-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

As of April 17th:

a) lines 1058 through 1205 of the Andreas translation have been posted: Andrew saves a young boy from being killed for food, and a devil's husc-wordas get the invisible saint to reveal himself to the desperate Mermedonians. The translation, as always, is accessible via the sidebar, or by following this link.

b) The Notes section has been updated to reflect all the poem currently posted.

c) A bibliographic section has been added to the Notes, which contains a list of all the published editions and translations of Andreas.

I'm starting to get wound up for the next poem to translate. Elene seems like the natural choice, since it appears in the Vercelli Book, and has a lot in common with Andreas, but I am considering Exodus or Guthlac. Of course, after Hal Momma's talk yesterday for ASSC, I might jump into the Exeter Book's Christ A, B & C or Christ and Satan.

Cresting the hill...

2008-04-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

The translation is updated now to line 1044. A jailbreak, a reunion, and fugitives fleeing off into the night.

I need to get my notes section caught up, but I have been kept very busy with trying to get my Havelok article polished up to send out, and completing a substantial draft of my Sir Gowther chapter.

Update

2008-03-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

We are current to line 891. Included in this installment is Andrew waking at the walls of Mermedonia, and the heavenly vision of his disciples. In the latter portion, I thought I might experiment a bit with the line lengths, since the vision sounds almost like a poem interpolated within the larger one.

Enjoy, and please keep the comments coming!

And another...

2008-03-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

The translation is now posted up to line 821. Andrew has just about reached Mermedonia, and the poem's first movement is nearing a close.

New Updates

2008-03-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

Lines 536-726 is now live on the Andreas translation page. The selection ends halfway through Andrew's story of the Miracle of the Walking Statue, but I thought I would post everything I had done up this point, since it had been a while since my last update.

Updated lines

2008-03-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

Lines 469-537 have been posted on the Andreas translation page. That's almost one-third of the way! The long conversation is nearly over and we are very close to reaching the meat and potatoes of the story.

On Æl-myrcna, l. 432

2008-02-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

Hello all -- lines 401-68 have been posted on the Andreas page.

I have been particularly interested in the following passage:

ond for dryhtnes lufan deað þrowodon,
on æl-myrcna eðelrice
sawle gesealdon. (431-3a)

and for the love of the Lord might suffer death, giving up your souls
in the homeland of wholly evil men.

Æl-myrcna does not appear anywhere else in the Old English corpus except here (according to the ASPR Concordance and the Dictionary the Old English Corpus). Bosworth-Toller gives the definition as "all sallow, a black man, an Ethiopian: omnino fuscus, Æthiops." There is no other citation given for the word other than Andreas. The word does not appear in the new Dictionary of Old English. The word, however, is definitely related to Exodus 53's Guð-myrce, given when the fleeing Israelites cross into unknown lands on their way out of Egypt.

A. S. G. Bradley, in his translation in Anglo-Saxon Poetry (1982), renders the word as “Ethiopians,” a decision that fits into the tradition set by most earlier editors and translators, including C. W. M. Grein, R. K. Root, George Krapp and J. Leslie Hall.

If this word truly means "Ethiopian" then the Andreas-poet has moved Mermedonia from Scythia or the Black Sea and placed it in Africa -- although it is possible that the "mirce" is related to the black in Black Sea, and the poet is playing with the two senses of darkness. Or else "-mirce" is meant to recall "mearc," a border, sign, limit, a word that has been important in Andreas already (Mermedonia is a mearc-land, they kill their victims after a fyrst-mearc passes, etc.).*

Of all modern editors Kenneth Brooks is unique in refuting this reading of æl-myrcna, claiming it is impossible for four reasons: 1) The prose versions do not include this fact, and all other times Ethiopia is used in Old English, either the Latin Æthiopia is used or else the OE Sigelhearwan or Sigelware; 2) Ethiopia is the site of Matthew’s martyrdom (FA 63ff.), but in the story of Andreas, Matthew is not martyred; 3) Mermedonia is very cold, contrary to the traditional idea of Ethiopia’s intense heat; and 4) there is no indication within the word itself that it is intended as a nonce for Ethiopia (Brooks, Andreas & The Fates of the Apostles (1961), 76-77). [Boenig renders the word as “Mermedonians,” noting that it is a traditional word for Ethiopia (83).]

This choice strikes me as a clear demonstration of the tendency to characterize the Mermedonians according to a colonial world-view, a feature that is quite congenial to their cannibalistic diet. The ease of the equation, however, makes me wonder at its propriety. As William Arens first argued, cannibalism has often been assumed to occur among primitive peoples, and therefore its practice is read into the actual observations of anthropologists, who never seem to see it directly, but nonetheless know it's there (The Man-Eating Myth, esp. 147). The cannibalism of the Mermedonians in Andreas becomes a not-so subtle way to read colonial entitlement back to the roots of English letters and Christian history: like our own colonial agents, the earliest civilizations waged a war against the primitive and self-consuming forces of anthropophagy. In locating Andreas against a backdrop of adventure stories and travel narratives of the English empire, the older poem is forced to parrot their racial and national ideologies.

I prefer as a straight kenning of moral, rather than geographic, character. Andreas uses mirce to mean "dark" or "evil" at 1219 and at 1314, rather than "African." I have therefore taken its meaning to be "of the all-dark, murky, or evil men" and have rendered it in the translation as "wholly evil men." This reading allows a greater sense of play within the poem, and should open up rather than close down meanings.

* Either way, if the word is meant as a geographic signifier, then this complicates Heather Blurton's recent argument that Mermedonia is meant to represent Anglo-Saxon England (Cannibalism in High Medieval English Literature, 23ff.). This doesn't completely invalidate her point: I prefer to think of Mermedonia as representing something very much like Anglo-Saxon England, or at least challenging the sense of Mermedonia's absolute difference (Blurton, 18-9).

Andreas Update

2008-02-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

Please head over to the Andreas page for the next installment of the translation: lines 349-400, representing the departure of the ship for Mermedonia and the coming of the terrible storm.

This is a pretty exciting moment: line 400 roughly marks the point where one quarter of the poem is completed.

Update to translation; ASSC Conference

2008-02-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

Lines 254-348 of Andreas, comprising the first part of Andrew and Jesus's conversation has been posted on the Andreas translation page. You may find the link in the sidebar or by going here.

Also, I am giving a paper at the ASSC graduate conference at Yale this weekend. Mary Kate Hurley over at Columbia, and who blogs at Old English in New York and In the Middle, will be responding. We thought we'd try to stage a first part of our conversation on our blogs, so I will post my paper, rough edges and all, here for display and comment:

A Tasty Turn of Phrase: Cannibal Poetics in Andreas

Andreas is a poem preoccupied with history and change, but one determined to enjoy that preoccupation. If not a joke, what else could one call the coincidence of sending an apostle, commanded to “eat such things as are set before you” (Luke 10:8), into a land of cannibals? The center of the conflict between the anthropophagite Mermedonians and the apostolic Andrew boils down to a disagreement with what to have for dinner. The stranger who must survive off foreign food travels to the nation where they eat strangers. The idea is funny, but also has a serious purpose, one suggested by the postmodernist examination of the cannibal fantasy, beginning with William Arens’ The Man-Eating Myth (1979): why has western civilization always seen man-eaters when it looks into the remote corners of the world. The discourse of cannibalism is deeply engaged with time: not only does it rest at the psychic roots of human society (as suggested in numerous origin myths worldwide and posited by Freud in Totem and Taboo), but the fixation upon its continuing practice serves as a reminder of that past’s proximity to the contemporary moment. Food practice comes to the forefront of a collision between points of historical identity: Mermedonian cannibalism and its conflation with the heroic, pagan past, the apostolic Christianity of Andrew and Matthew, and the Jewish, Old Testament roots against which Christianity defined itself. The poem’s shifting sense of past is displayed structurally as well, through the use of extensive appropriation from its poetic predecessors. That Andreas contains extensive verbal parallels to other Old English poems—repeated lines, analogous scenes, identical formulae—has long been known, but the implications of the observation have yet to be fully explored. It was not until a recent dissertation by Allison Powell that it became systematically apparent just how many lines it borrows: comparing it with Beowulf and the signed poems of Cynewulf, her research reveals that about 10% of Andreas is repeated from the earlier poems (as well as repeating its own language in 50% of its lines) (Verbal Parallels in Andreas and its Relationship to Beowulf and Cynewulf, 2002). My own comparisons, though incomplete and unsystematic have turned up many more parallel passages, extending throughout the extant poetic corpus. Though I am indebted to past work on the formulaic nature of Anglo-Saxon poetry, this paper will not attempt to define the mechanics of repetition in Andreas. I am more interested in what is communicated across the repetition; how the citation responds to the source. This paper will present two ideas: one, that the parallel passages in Andreas are conscious quotations of earlier works; and second, that this practice of quotation is a skillfully-used rhetorical device that contributes to the poem’s unique examination of the embodied experience of historical identity; an experience analogous to the ingestion of food. The author of Andreas uses citation much like Eliot does in The Waste Land: as the residue of past identities, strata upon which the present is built but which nevertheless communicates with it. Strategic quotation acts as a localized phenomenon, a small-scale version of the poem’s larger movements examining the past, and together they present an integrated poetic investigation of a culture’s temporal consciousness.
Criticism of Andreas has long been bound up in its subordinate relationship with other, more canonical, Old English poems. The primary effect of early critical awareness of the “borrowings” of Andreas was entirely to the poem’s disadvantage: the common take was that the Andreas -poet was a hack (E.G. Stanley referred to him as a “poetic dunderhead”) that stole liberally from his more illustrious forebears, but, like a student plagiarist, failed to integrate this booty into the fabric of his poem: the pieces stick out as foreign, used without any decorum. One notorious example of the poet’s meager skills even as a plagiarist comes at lines 302:

“Næbbe ic fæted gold ne feoh-gestreon,
welan ne wiste ne wira gespann,
landes ne locenra beaga, þæt ic þe mæge lust ahwettan,
willan in worulde, swa ðu worde becwist.” (301-4)

“I have no ornamented gold nor money-treasure, [nothing of] wealth nor sustenance nor woven wire broaches, lands nor locked rings, that I can provide your desire, your wishes in this world, as you have said in word.”

The half-line “landes ne locenra beaga” appears in Beowulf 2995, and preserves the partitive genitives of the original, apparently non-grammatically, in the Vercelli text:

þa he to ham becom,
Iofore ond Wulfe mid ofer-maðmum,
sealde hiora gehwæðrum hund þusenda
landes ond locendra beaga. (2992-5)

When he returned to his home,
to Eofor and Wulf with many treasures
he gave to each of them a hundred thousand
of land and locked rings.

The traditional critical response to this example reveals a dead-end in the response to the repeated passage: arguments are made about grammar but nothing is said about why these particular words appear here, and nowhere else in the poetic corpus.
The obvious connection between the two passages is contrasting amount: in Beowulf the amount is overwhelming to the point of being nonsensical, while in Andreas there is nothing. Their immediate contexts both involve the role of reward and payment in the proper observation of one’s loyalties. Hygelac rewards Wulf and Eofor for their battle-acts as is proper to a king, while Andrew carries nothing of value with him since his instructions as an apostle require him to carry neither purse nor scrip nor shoes on his travels (Luke 10:4). However, there is an important distinction in the reason why the two warriors are rewarded: They have killed the Swedish king, and by rewarding their actions Hygelac maintains the feud. The chain of violence created will end in an eventual Swedish invasion after Beowulf’s death and destroy the Geats. The system of violence and reward perpetuates an endless cycle of further violence. Andrew, bearing his life and peace instead of weapons, requests passage to Mermedonia to end their ongoing feud against all strangers, a system that not only relies upon an absolute distinction between friend and enemy, but also makes the Mermedonians utterly dependent on hostility (perhaps this is what is meant in line 30 by their unlædra eafoð [violence of the wretched]). The endlessly consuming feuds of Scandinavian tribes are set up as a parallel to the anthropophagite predations of the Mermedonians, and Andrew’s mission is intended to free a people in the present from a destructive cycle that characterizes the past.
Andreas strategically reverses the values of Beowulf through its practice of selectively quoting the earlier poem. The death-ship of the first Beowulf (32ff.) is recalled in the description of the ship that carries Andrew to Mermedonia (360-2); the treasures of the people replaced with something higher. Andrew’s approach to the prison of the Mermedonians (981-1003) strongly parallels Grendel’s to Heorot (710-733). The Mermedonians themselves recall in many ways the descriptions of Danish warriors. These examples help to sketch out the most compelling reason for the poet to cite this predecessor. Beowulf has bee understood as an attempt to engage the past, to understand the transition between then and now. Andreas takes its cue from this temporal perspective, launching its own exploration of the different identities of the past, identities that continue to claim us in the present.
Beowulf is not the only source of Andreas’s quotations, and the distant past represented in that poem becomes augmented through engagement with other poetry, including but not limited to the poems attributed to Cynewulf. For example, in a climactic moment of Andreas, the saint addresses a stone outside his prison cell in order to invoke the flood that will destroy the Mermedonians and release him from their torment (#2):

He be wealle geseah wundrum fæste
under sælwange sweras unlytle,
stapulas standan, storme bedrifene,
eald enta geweorc. He wið anne þæra,
mihtig ond modrof, mæðel gehede,
wis, wundrum gleaw, word stunde ahof:

He saw by the wall, rooted fast beneath the plains of time, columns —and not small ones— pillars standing battered by the storm, the old work of giants. He, mighty and mind-bold, wise and wonderfully sagacious, held a moot with one of them and heaved up a word at once. (1492-7)

The final half-line “word stunde ahof” appears nowhere else in the corpus except for Elene 723, when Judas Cyriacus, recently released from torment in a dry well, prays for guidance to find the cross:

ond hwæðre geare nyste,
hungre gehyned, hwær sio halige rod,
þurh feondes searu foldan getyned,
lange legere fæst leodum dyrne
wunode wælreste. Word stunde ahof
elnes oncyðig, ond on Ebrisc spræc:

And yet, reduced by starvation, he did not know exactly where the holy Cross, buried in the earth by devious trickery, long unmoved in its resting place, secreted from the people, lay in its grave. At once, conscious of courage, he sent up these words and said in Hebrew. (719-24, Bradley)

The similarity in the circumstances are striking: In either case, the threat of imprisonment and torture is close at hand, and the speaker will ultimately pray for deliverance from the sins of an entire people. In Elene, Judas speaks in Hebrew; while in Andreas, Andrew will speak of notable Hebrews (Moses, Joshua and Tobit). The character speaks to encourage the earth to reveal the secrets of its history, which are fixed in the ground. Their presence may be patent, as in the “eald enta geweorc” of Andreas or the hidden below the surface within the featureless plains of Calvary, but they can be discovered through verbal address. The idea of a conversation with history itself is what makes this parallel so impressive: time is a force that can be communed with, spoken to and asked to divulge what it contains.
The subject of my final example involves another way of looking at time—that is, engaging its forward progression—and it also demonstrates that quotation in Andreas reaches beyond the big-hitters of Anglo-Saxon poetry. In the case of lines 129-33, the Mermedonians’ intentions towards their prisoners are revealed:

Woldon cunnian hwæðer cwice lifdon
þa þe on carcerne clommum fæste
hleo-leasan wic hwile wunedon,
hwylcne hie to æte ærest mihton
æfter first-mearce feores berædan.

They wished to prove whether the ones, while they dwelt in that comfortless place, remained alive in the prison, secured by chains; who they would be able to deprive of their spirit the soonest according to their appointed time for eating.

The combination of words in line 133, “æfter fyrstmearce feorh-” does not appear anywhere else in the extant corpus except for one other appearance. In the Phoenix 223-6, after the magical bird burns itself on its pyre, it is reborn with the following description:

Hwæþre him eft cymeð
æfter fyrstmearce feorh edniwe,
siþþan þa yslan eft onginnað
æfter ligþræce lucan togædre,
geclungne to cleowenne

Yet life anew comes to him again, after the appointed time, thereupon the cinders soon begin to coalesce after the flame’s violence, clinging into a ball.

The first image that relates the two passages is their similar use of enclosing imagery: the prison and the chains of Andreas give way to scattered or dispersed life versus the coalescence of what has already been scattered, the ashes of the phoenix’s pyre. The orderly passage of time is also important to both of these passages, but with contrasting effect. The Phoenix begins with destruction and moves towards rebirth after the “fyrst-mearc,” while the Mermedonians start with life. Where the phoenix has destroyed itself in order to reborn, the Mermedonians destroy other men to renew themselves, setting a tension between opposite processes of death and life. The phoenix, in a cyclical pattern, destroys itself to be reborn. This, however, is a pattern that rests outside of history; and although it can be compared to the growth of seeds, and is allegorically mapped onto the incarnation of Christ, there is no end to the cycle and no progress can be made. There is only an eternal exchange of self for self in a closed circle. The Mermedonians represent a more open, more dialectical exchange. Although they are described as sylfætan (or lierally, “self-eaters,” line 175), they capture only strangers to be eaten, and through a process of preparation convert their victims to the intellectual and ethical status of animals. They eat their own kind, but try to make them as different as possible before the slaughter. In this way the Mermedonians are much more like us, for all animals must incorporate what is foreign and outside into its body in order to replenish and maintain itself. However, their alienated relationship with nature requires absolute hostility to the outside world, an eternally perpetuated cycle of feud. They have no way to interact with others except to eat them. The two models of consumption suggested by this parallel passage can be mapped onto another historical comparison made in the poem between Jewish and Christian identities. But there it’s not a question of whom these peoples eat, but with whom they can eat.
Jesus’s instructions to the apostles are much more than a logistical precept: refusing to bring anything of one’s own food forces dependence on the foreigner, and partaking of whatever is given him makes the stranger more familiar with every bite. It is an ambitious attempt to transcend one’s historical identity bodily through a shared meal. It reverses the exclusions set up by the demands of Mosaic dietary law and makes an international religious movement possible. It is also mirrors the process by which the Andreas-author has constructed his poem. Andy Orchard has recently outlined the importance of reusing literary formulae, the language of previous poems, in the composition in Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Latin poetry, but in the case of Andreas there is something that extends beyond this. There is more to the quotation than the acknowledgment of well-used language or the participation in a tradition, but an acknowledgment of their chronological difference and a response to the source’s context. Making an analogy from the incorporation of formulaic language to the metabolic implications of diet, we can see how the poem is altered through its intimate contact with the material of the other. The satisfaction provided through this consumption suggest the presence of thematic and philosophical needs that are satisfied through devouring other poems. This state perhaps explains the strangely melancholic nature of anthropophagites in Anglo-Saxon literature (such as the Donestre or the Mermedonians). Cannibal and poet are locked in a struggle with time—knowing that the cycle of time, whether metabolic or ritual, will place them in need of killing and devouring someone much like themselves again, and will leave them again with the aftermath of broken wholes. The act of devoration leaves the eater with a raw sense of the self in time, of one’s utter dependence of the presence of the past with which to construct a present, and a lingering sense of absolute difference from the apparent integrity of those pasts.

[Update: For Mary Kate's response, go here .

Working out some changes

2008-01-29T08:45:00.001-08:00

So, you will now find a link marked "Texts for Translation" in the sidebar. This will take you to the complete translation of Andreas in its most up-to-date form. Notes are marked with asterisks, and provided in a separate post underneath the text.

I have also juggled with the settings so that it's easier to read. The colors might change as I get a feel for them.

I've been working up the dialogue between Andrew and Jesus-as-sailor and probably will have it lineated and posted by tomorrow.

Some redesign ideas

2008-01-26T08:39:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I just realized that my habit of posting something and then returning to it over time to edit, correct and expand it makes it look like that I haven't posted since January 18th. Not a huge deal, but it shows that I'm treating this like a webpage and not like a blog. The problem is that I want a coherent sequence of lines of the translation together so that it can be appreciated/judged in context.

I'm thinking the solution would be to create a blogspot page for each of the translated texts, and then post updates/new translations here as I get them. Then a link could take a reader to the full translation as it grows. That might allow a more comprehensive apparatus to grow up around the completed text as well.

Sorry, thinking aloud -- that should work though, right? Anyone have any ideas of what else could be done?

Andreas Translation, cont'd (168b-254)

2008-01-22T12:34:00.000-08:00

(168b-230: Andrew is summoned; he doubts he can help)

Then from heaven a voice was heard in Achaia,
where the holy man Andrew was instructing the people
in the life’s way, when the King’s Glory, the Creator
of Mankind, the Lord of Hosts, unlocked his mind-hoard
to Andrew, decision-bold, and said thus in words: “You
must travel, bearing your peace, and seek out a journey,
where the self-eaters defend their domain, hold
their homeland through murder-craft. Such is the custom
of that multitude that they do not wish that any
unkindred men be granted their lives in that folk-land,
after the malicious discover the miserable in Mermedonia.
Killed by wretched men, a life-parting must afterwards
take place. There I know your victory-brother
to languish, in fast bounds amid those citizens.
There are now but three nights until Matthew must
yield up his soul to the spear’s grip for the sake of
the hand-strife of heathens, unless you, ready to depart,
should come before.”

At once, Andrew gave him answer:
“How can I, my Lord, accomplish this so hastily across
the deep waters, upon the far-flung wave, before that moment,
O Heaven-shaper and Wielder of Glory, as your word instructs?
That an angel can easily travel, holy from the heavens, the course
of waters known to him, the salty sea-streams and
the swan-road, the struggle of surf and the water-terrors,
the ways over the wide-lands. There are no friends
known to me there, these strange nobles, nor do
I know any of the thoughts of those men, nor are
the troop-roads over cold water familiar to me.”

Then the Lord Eternal answered him: “Alas,
Andrew, that you would ever be sluggish to the journey’s path!
There is nothing difficult for the All-wielding God
upon the earth-ways, so that that city, the king-throne renowned,
with all its inhabitants, could be planted into this very land
under the course of heaven—if the Owner of Glory decreed it in word.
You may not be slow to this journey, nor feeble in your wits,
unless you truly conceive contrary to your Sovereign,
and His true token. Be ready at the proper time—
there can be no delay of this errand! You must then set out
on a journey, bearing your spirit into the grip of furious men,
where a war-struggle will be offered to you through
the rushing crash of battle, through the war-craft of warriors.
You must mount a ship by necessity with the dawn,
even at next morrow, at the seashore—and on the cold water,
burst forth over the bath-way. Have my blessing across
my middle-earth wherever you go!”

Then the Holy Holder and Wielder, the Source of High-Angels and
the Guardian of Middle-earth departed from him, and sought
his own country, that renowned home, where the souls
of the sooth-fast can brook life after their bodies are gone.

(231-54: Andrew heads down to the shore & finds a ship)

When the message was declared to the champion of noble cities,
Andrew had no timorous mind, but was resolute
for valiant deeds, firm and stout-hearted—not at all battle-slow—
but readied by war for the contest of God. Then he himself
departed at dusk in the earliest morn, across the sandy dunes
to the sea’s shore, bold in mind, and with his thegns,
to walk upon the sand. The spear-waves* resounded, beating
the brim-streams. The warrior was hopeful after he discovered
on the shore a ship, broad-bosomed and high-spirited.
Then came the morning-shine, brightest of beacons,
over the water, holy from the darkness. The candle of heaven
gleamed over the sea-floods. Andrew found there
the ship-wards, proud and glorious men, three thegns
sitting in their sea-boat, such as they had come in over the sea.
That was the Lord himself, the Wielder of Multitudes, the Eternal
Almighty, with two of his angels. They were in the raiment
of seafarers, nobles in wave-sailors’ guise who bounce upon
the water’s embrace across the distant wave in ships upon the cold water.

238: The word here is "gar-secg," a kenning that according to Bosworth-Toller literally translates to "spear-man." It is fairly common and used to mean "the sea" (particularly in the translation of Orosius, according to Dictionary of the Old Englsih Corpus), and operates as a personification, perhaps imaging an ocean deity like Poseidon--though not necessarily, since the waves could be perceived as a field of soldiers bearing pointed weapons. The noun "secg" can also mean "sword," "sedge (grass)," or "sea" -- though it is easy to see how all four are derived from one central signification of "man" -- i.e. by metonymy, "sword" as a part of a man's possessions; the grass through simile, because it has sharp blades, and "sea" (but only attested once in this sense) by dropping off the first part of the kenning through habitual use.

An introduction to Andreas

2007-12-30T17:15:00.000-08:00

Andreas is the first poetic text in the Vercelli Book, a late tenth-century compendium, consisting of mostly prose homilies with six poems mixed in throughout: Andreas, "The Fate of the Apostles," Elene (both believed to be written by Cynewulf), "The Dream of the Rood," "Soul and Body I" and one other poetic fragment. The volume is located in Vercelli, Italy, and it is a matter of speculation about how or why this volume arrived at that place.

Andreas is the story of the mission of St. Andrew to save St. Matthew from being eaten by the cannibalistic Mermedonians, who dwell on an island far away from Achaia (Greece). The Mermedonians elaborately prepare their victims for consumption, blinding them, forcing them to drink a potion that deprives their victims of reason, and locking them in a prison for thirty days. St. Matthew is captured as soon as he arrives in Mermedonia, but is delivered from blindness and insanity through divine intervention. God promises Matthew will be delivered from his bonds and Andrew is sent from Greece.

Poetically, Andreas is a remarkable text, notable both for what seem to be a widespread practice of quotation from earlier poems, as well as (and perhaps paradoxically) a powerfully unique poetic vocabulary and frequently hair-raising moments of descriptive and narrative power.

ANDREAS: A VERSE TRANSLATION (59-168a)

2007-12-17T17:08:00.001-08:00

(59-87: Matthew’s Lament)

Then he, weeping with wearied tears,
lamented unto his Victory-lord
with sorrowful speech, to the Lord of Men,
in a wretched voice, Giver of the People’s Good,
and he spoke in words so: “How the strangers
have prepared for me a treacherous net, a guile-chain!
Always was I ever on the paths according to your purpose,
eager in heart; now through anxieties,
I must perform my deeds as those dumb beasts.
You alone know all thoughts, Lord of Mankind,
the heart in breast. If it be your will, Prince of Glory,
that I am to sleep by pledge-breaker’s swords,
the weapon’s edges, I am immediately prepared
to endure in exile what you wish to ordain,
my Lord,Bliss-giver of Angels, Deed-origin of Hosts.
Give to me your mercy, Almighty God, light in this life,
lest I must, blinded in this fortress after the sword-hate,
by hateful sentence of blood-greedy, malign man-harmers,
suffer at length their scorn-speak. I affix
my heart solely to you, guardian of middle-earth,
with fast love of my soul, and I wish to ask you,
Father of Angels, Bright Bestower of Fruits,
that you number me not amid your guilt-foes,
the weary crime-wrights, in the worst death
O Deemer of Hosts, upon the earth!”

(88-118: God answers Matthew & promises him help)

After these words, came a holy sign of glory,
a banner so clearly from the heavens to the prison.
There it was revealed that holy god had effected help,
when the voice of the Heaven-King was heard,
curious under clouds, the voice of the famous prince’s sentence.
Bright-voiced God announced cure and comfort
from the battle-bold to his retainer within the harm-coffer:

“I give my peace to you, Matthew, under the heavens.
Do not be fearful in heart, do not mourn
in mind--I abide with you and shall ransom you
from these storied fetters,* and all those multitudes
that dwell with you in sore confinement. For you,
paradise* is opened by holy powers, brightest of prosperities,
the fairest weal-house, a hopeful and splendid home.
There you may enjoy glory and delight as long as you may live.
Endure these people’s affliction! There is not much time
that the pledge-breakers, sinful through spiteful art,
will be allowed to afflict you with tormenting bonds.
I shall dispatch Andrew immediately as shelter and solace
for you in this heathen city. He shall redeem you
from this folk-hate. There is until that moment a finite number,
a space of time equal to seven and twenty counts of night
truly until you, one sorely aggrieved yet deserving of victory,
will be allowed to depart from your constraint,
from your humiliation into the hold of God.”

(119-168a: Exit God, intrant Mermedonians)

Then from Matthew the holy helm of all beings
withdrew, the shaper of angels, to his uppermost native-realm—
he is by right the king, stirring steadfast, in any place.
Then Matthew was greatly inspired by the new voice.
The night-helm glided past, swiftly slipping away.
Light came after, the rush of dawn.
The multitude assembled, heathen warriors,
crowded in heaps, armor ringing, spears shaking,
swollen-minded under shield-cover.
They wished to prove whether the ones,
while they dwelt in that comfortless place,
remained alive in the prison, secured by chains;
who they would be able to deprive of their spirit
the soonest according to their appointed time
for eating. They, slaughter-greedy, had inscribed,
in both secret letters and computation, the conclusion of men,
when their victims should be made into food
for the meat-lacking in that nation of men.
The cold-hearted cried out to their fierce leader—
one band pressing upon another. They heeded not
the right nor mercy of the creator. Often their thoughts
were taken by the devil’s edicts in the dark shadows,
while they entrusted themselves to his miserable might.

Then they found the holy hero, wise-minded,
under the dark enclosure, battle-strong, expecting
what the bright king, source-point of angels,
wished to give. When the time was passed,
the stipulation of the time-mark save three nights—
as the slaughter-wolves had inscribed it—they intended
to break apart the bone-rings, quickly separate body and soul,
and then distribute the fated flesh-home to old and young,
a meal and a grateful repast for men. They mourned not
for life, the greedy warriors, how the journey of the soul
after the death-throes was decreed by word.
So they called a feast after thirty counts of night;
there was much desire to swiftly break with bloody jaws
human flesh-homes, for their sustenance.

Then he, who had established middle-earth
with strong powers, was mindful how Matthew
dwelt in a strange people’s misery, locked up
with storied fetters, he who had often suffered
for God’s love before the Hebrews and the Israelites—
he who had withstood quite strongly the magic arts of the Jews.

100: The word here is leoðu-bendum, which appears 3 times in Andreas but otherwise unattested in other texts (according to the Dictionary of the Old English Corpus.) The first part resembles leoð: "song, poem, story."

102: This is my favorite A-S word neorxna-wang which is used fairly frequently, and is glossed by Ælfric as "Paradisum." Except for the -wang part ("plain, field"), it is uncertain how the word is derived.

Translation Rationale

2007-12-16T18:01:00.000-08:00

OK, I promised to share my goals in creating my verse translation, the aspects of Old English verse that I feel are most necessary to preserve or approximate when rendering the verse in modern English.

My first goal is of course what all translators strive for, to create a smooth, readable text. I want my rendering to portray the complexity and beauty of the original without relying on archaic diction, words that only appear in fancy documents or on Renaissance Fair signs. It is also possible to overstate the solemnity of the verse to suit some preconception of how a certain subject matter must be expressed. If Middle English, Latin, Old Norse, or Old French verse is any indication, then there has always been a taste for the mixed voice, the incongruous shift in tone, and a shameful, delightful appreciation for puns. Also the marked tendency of extant Anglo-Saxon poetry to engage in litotes (ironic understatement, such as in the phrase "sweras unlytle" [not small columns] from Andreas 1494) and other sorts of irony, grim or otherwise, indicates that drollness and deadpan delivery were alive and well for Old English writers. I want to try, whenever possible, to bring out the humor that appears in the verse. The hagiographic poems I like so much are intended as pleasurable reading, as well as edifying, and one way that this pleasure manifests itself is through humor. They may not be belly-laughs anymore, but they should test your mouth with a smile every now and then.(1)

Second, is to honor the poetic features of the verse. Allow me to briefly outline the major features one at a time:

a) Alliteration: A-S poetry has traditionally been broken up into lines of four strong stresses, with the first three of the four normally marked by alliteration, or a repetition of an initial consonant sound (any vowel will alliterate with any other, if needed). This pattern varies, of course, with lines with only two alliterating syllables allowed to stand, and sometimes all four stresses have alliteration. Here are the first four lines of Andreas to show what this looks like:

Hwæt! We gefrunan on fyrn-dagum
twelfe under tunglum tir-eadige hæleð,
þeodnes þegnas. No hira þrym alæg
camp-rædenne þonne cumbol hneotan,

I really the admire the way that alliteration stretches the vocabulary of a poet and encourages variation through the use of epithets to stand in for proper names. Furthermore, it is an important stylistic tool of all English poetry since and has remained an effective rhetorical device in oration, advertising and prose. However, I find that overly relying on alliteration in modern English can get tiresome, especially as the translator must often strain a reader's credulity further and further in order to find the right word. I decided to push it as far as it feels right to do, and to substitute other sound-relations (such as assonance, consonance, and internal rhyme) when appropriate.

b) Specialized vocabulary and kenning: The need for variety in alliterating sounds leads to the use of a set of words that only appear in poetry, words like guma, secg, and wig, all meaning 'man,' pop up in order to extend the number of places that man can be expressed in a line. In these cases, I do not wish to rely on archaic words in order to preserve the diction, but use something more natural whenever possible.

Related to poetic diction is the issue of kenning, the compound words formed by combining two separate words, whether noun-noun, adjective-noun, noun-adjective, or adverb-adjective. These combinations are a form of tight metaphor, meant to pull between the vehicle (the image suggested by the words) and the tenor (what the words are supposed to represent), sometimes violently. Because of the tugging effect of the kenning, I have a hard time accepting translations that just give a word for the tenor (as Heaney says he has done in his Beowulf when a kenning is used for a common object). There is always a choice to be made, and when I feel that a kenning expresses a unique, unsettling and defamiliarizing image, I will try to maintain that image as much as possible.

c) Accumulation and apposition: Another challenge to smooth translation is the frequent patterns of accumulation; piling up epithets and articles in apposition to each other --i.e., filing the same grammatical place in the clause. Often these accumulated epithets are distributed along one side or the other of a series of consecutive lines: for example, the epithets will accumulate on the first half of the line, while the action, or another series of epithets describing something else, will accumulate on the second half of the line. (This can happen with other rhetorical patterns of a sentence: say, placing descriptors of a cause on one side, and the those of the effect on the other.) These will be handled on a case by case basis: sometimes the strength of the verse lies in the interwoven pattern of accumulation, other times untangling the clauses into a straightforward syntax will read more easily.

d) Meter and Lineation: How to break the poetry up into lines is another matter entirely. As Thomas Bredehoft has reminded us, much of the appearance of Anglo-Saxon verse is the result of a great deal of detective work.(2) It is detective work that has proven very useful, nevertheless it is still a hypothesis. The poetry in the manuscripts is not lineated, and the idea of the tight, alliterating line of poetry consisting of four stresses broken by an internal caesura, is based on a venerable process of scholarly examination and comparison. Whether the audience or readers of this poetry ever actually heard or experienced it the way we do is probably unanswerable. The theory of Oral-Formulaic composition (that is, of an entire system of metrically-correct half-line formulae that selected from and adapted as needed to build a poem) would seem to confirm that the poetry as we present is more or less correct, but there seems to be a circularity to the argument. We want to think that Anglo-Saxon poets thought in terms of half-lines because we have construed the poetry in that format. The problematic existence of metrical features in many homilies, such as those by Ælfric and Wulfstan, complicate the picture of the verse.

Another pressing matter that I am not sure has ever really been addressed is the absolute similitude of Anglo-Saxon verse, regardless of its use or genre. It's always four-stress verse, with some, but not systematic, variation in stress patterns (the famous Sievers types). Other poetic traditions contemporary with Anglo-Saxon, and/or that may have influenced their poetry, as well as others that may have been experienced aurally rather than read, are notable for their variety. There is a bewildering variety of Greek, Welsh, Latin and French verse forms, forms that are able to be distinguished by the ear, whether through rhyme, meter, or other effects. Why has that idea of variety never caught on with Anglo-Saxon verse? I find it hard to accept that the Riddles must be in the same form as the epic Beowulf -- it tends to reduce the picture of the Anglo-Saxon's poetic prowess.

Therefore, I feel no compelling imperative to match or approximate the meter in my translation. Not only is that extremely difficult, since we must use so many more articles and prepositions to express a sentence, but many of the lines that we perceive as metrical are only revealed as such through amendment (heavy or otherwise). I've been flirting with some sprung rhythm, but it has so far declined to do more than meet my gaze every once in a while. I like the sound of sprung rhythm, but there is an element of nostalgia in it, since it is often assumed when a poet wants to sound old-timey (and even Hopkins, as startling as he was, often feels like a nostalgist). I would be content if there is a tendency or a hint of it in my translation -- I want startling and dramatic (even melodramatic occasionally), but not to participate overmuch in longing for lost temporalities. In terms of poetic lines, I really admire Robinson Jeffers and the long lines he uses in his tragic narrative poems (like Roan Stallion or Tamar). These seem like approximations of Greek dactylic hexameters, but to my ear do not come off as so rigidly metrical (though I may be wrong here) -- I see seven or even more stresses in them. My own, abortive attempts to write verse of my own has tended to follow in these long Jeffers-epic lines.

I am also disinclined to force the translation into lines that fall into even halves. I want caesuras and rhythm patterns to shift, and often, to facilitate the dynamics of the verse. You should be able to locate anything in the translation easily if it is compared to the Old English text (and in an ideal world, the publication of these works would be facing-page). So I will try to match the sound and sense patterns wherever possible, and feel free to exceed them or overflow them whenever the translation may be improved by it.

(1) See Jonathan Wilcox's collection of essays, Humour in Anglo-Saxon Literature (D.S. Brewer, 2000) for a detailed examination of many facets of this issue.

(2) "What are Old English Metrical Studies For?" The Old English Newsletter 39.1, pp. 25-36.

The Monster of Translation

2007-12-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

We all know that the epic poem Beowulf (c. 800-1025?) was originally written in an early ancestor of our own language, but the majority of its readers encounter the story in a modern English voice. The poem itself is particularly suited to translation: an important epic work that is fundamentally obsessed with the problems of looking back, especailly from a Christian ethos preserving and retelling the image of the pagan past. To make a translation of Beowulf is just to add another frame to the several already contained with it, and perform an act of interpretation that seems to need to be renewed every few years or so.

The language of the poem speaks only in small pieces, a snippet of Anglo-Saxon read aloud by the instructor, or a disembodied voice speaking on an audio recording — in either case an uncanny experience mixing familiar sounds with foreign grammar given in an exaggerated tone of solemnity. The class soon shifts back to the lighted realms of Modern English, intrigued by the alterior experience, but glad to get back to the text in front of the class.

It was into this frame of mind that I found myself thrown as I watched the 2007 remake of Beowulf and was stunned to hear Anglo-Saxon speech in two circumstances: the first comes any time Grendel has dialogue, the second is the scop performing at the feast later in the movie. At first, I didn't recognize this language that I've studied, admired, translated from. Gradually I felt the sounds slide into the patterns that I knew from my work, and could hear it, in a distorted version of Crispin Glover's voice, ventriloquized through the film Grendel's image of abjection and disgust.

Given the film's many, many liberties with the story, the presence of the original tongue in these circumstances is striking. I wonder how the film uses Anglo-Saxon strategically to firm up its own authority to tell the story. The uncanny, vaguely familiar sounds of Modern English's lingustic ancestry are placed in the mouths of propagandists (the scop) and the enemy, a move that casts director Robert Zemeckis and screenplay writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary in the role of Beowulf himself, whose exertions bravely offer rescue from the monstrosity of the original.

I have to say it is a clever move, perhaps even the best way to insulate their efforts from the objections of anyone who would have preferred a more faithful adaptation of the poem. It is quite possibly what J.R.R. Tolkein may have envisioned himself doing when he delivered his "The Monster and the Critics" talk in 1936: rescuing a piece of literature that he admired against an old guard that had maintained that the poem's value lay in its chronicling of Danish genealogy. And even Tolkein's form of allegorization of the poem needed to be overthrown by later generations of critics.

I didn't hate the movie, though. The story told in the poem is probably unfilmable, but at least Gaiman and Avary get points for tossing in references to many of the texts' issues and tangents, such as the Christian frame of the tale, and the unreliability of Beowulf's boasting (My favorite one may not actually have been intended, but I thought when Beowulf turns over the mead-cask onto Grendel's witch-fire, there seemed to be a nod towards that great crux of the text, the uncertain referent of the unusual word, ealuscerwen.)

A bit of translation to start things off...

2007-12-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

To get things moving, I will provide the first 58 lines of Andreas. I will set out some my considerations and values next post, but this should get things moving.

(1-18: Invocation & Introduction)

Listen to what we have learned in former-days—
of glory-blessed heroes, twelve under the stars,
the thegns of the Lord? Their force did not fail
in the war-reckoning when the banners clashed together —
afterwards they separated as their lord himself,
Heaven’s High-King, had assigned their lot.
Those were illustrious men upon the earth,
bold folk-leaders on the fate-plain,
doughty warriors and battle-brave, when shield
and hand defended their crown on the harrying-field.

There was among them a certain Matthew,
who, first among the Jews, began to write
the Gospel in words with wondrous skill.
Holy God had decreed the portion for him:
out to the island of Mermedonia where they did not allow
any strangers to enjoy the prosperity of their native land.
Often he had encountered stoutly
the hand of slayers in the harrying-field.

(19-39: The Land of Mermedonia)

That whole march-land was wound in murder,
the enemy’s deceit, the dwelling-place of men,
homeland of heroes. There was neither bite of bread
nor drink of water for Mermedonian men to enjoy.
Instead they consumed blood and skin, throughout the nation
the flesh-homes of foreign-coming men.
Such was their custom that they made all strangers,
who sought their island from outside, into meat for the meat-lacking.
Such was the peace-less token of these people,
the violence of the wretched, that the gore-grim enemy,
sad-minded, destroyed the sight of the eyes,
the head-gems, with the point of spears.
Afterwards, druids bitterly mixed together
a frightful drink through error-craft for their victim—
their wit was perverted, the conscience of men,
the heart in breast, mind changed,
so that their victims mourned no longer for the joys of men,
the bloodthirsty heroes, but, exhausted, tormented by hunger,
they ate hay and grass instead.

(40-58: Matthew arrives in Mermedonia)

When Matthew was come to that notorious city,
into that fortress, there was a great clamor
throughout Mermedonia: a band of the wicked,
the defiled's tumult, after the devil’s thegns
had learned of the noble one’s arrival.
Then they went against him, swiftly under shield,
armed with spears —none were late—
the enraged ash-bearers, towards the fight’s flame-point.
They bound the hands of the holy one there
and fastened Matthew by the fiend’s craft,
those hell-hastening heroes. His head’s flags
they burst with the sword’s edge. Nevertheless he honored
the guardian of the heaven’s realm in his breast,
even though he accepted the terrible drink of poison.
Blessed and single-minded, Matthew with courage still
worshipped the Prince of Glory wordfully,
the heaven-kingdom’s guardian with a holy voice,
from his prison. For him, Christ’s praise was
wound up tightly in his soul-enclosure.

A Proposal as Introduction

2007-11-28T20:19:00.001-08:00

Greetings friends and fans of Old English!

This blog has been made to chronicle my journey through a major project: to create a new, verse translation of the Anglo-Saxon narrative poems, ultimately with a view towards publication in an edition useful to teachers of medieval literature. To start, I would like to make engaging, compelling poetic versions of five narrative poems: Andreas, Elene, Juliana, Genesis A&B, and Guthlac A&B. Other contenders for inclusion are Christ I, II & III, Exodus, and The Phoenix.

There are other, more popular poems, especially Beowulf and Judith, but I have found these poems have very good poetic translations. The translation of Beowulf is an industry unto itself, with a new one coming out every few years. Seamus Heaney's translation, now bundled in the Norton Anthology of British Literature, has captured the public imagination in a way that few translations can expect, despite its problems. (It is difficult to imagine, for instance, that a major motion-picture adaptation of the great poem could have come out using some of the older translations...)

Judith, along with most of the shorter lyric poems ("The Wanderer," "Dream of the Rood," "Fates of the Apostles," et al.) can be found in Elaine Treharne's excellent Blackwell anthology, Old and Middle English Literature, which is one of the first to present the continuity of the English Middle Ages.

My secondary intention in producing my translations is to avoid redundnacy with other commonly available editions. The poems I wish to translate are all available in A.S. Bradley's antholoy Anglo-Saxon Poetry, but he provides prose translations, and only presents excerpts of longer works such as the Genesis. I feel strongly that having verse translations would do more to perserve the artistic features of the originals, and more effectively communicate the sound and feel of these poems to students.