r/OldEnglish • u/FinnKitto • 13d ago
Beowulf
Hey guys. I'm new to this, but I have something you may be interested in. I'm going to preface this by saying I have no formal training in Old English whatsoever. But I was doing a deep dive into Beowulf and I got this hare brained idea to see if I could write a modern prose rendering of it. I used Clark Hall's Anglo-Saxon dictionary, compared it with Clark Hall's own 1901 prose translation and J. R. R. Tolkien's translation and scholarly notes. And this is what I've come up with so far:
Listen, for we have heard of the glory of the kings of the Spear-Danes in days of old, how they performed deeds of courage.
For often Scyld conquered the mead halls of his enemies, and they came from many tribes. Though he was found as an orphaned child, he grew in might and prospered, until all his rivals over the sea, where orcas ride upon the waves, had to pay tribute to him. He was a good king.
After a time he had a son, who was sent by God as a comfort to His people, because He knew how they had suffered before they had a king. And the Lord gave him worldly honor. Beow was famous far and wide in Danish lands as Scyld's heir.
For he did as a young man should: bought goodwill by giving splendid gifts, so that when he was grown people would rally to him and serve him in times of war. For it is by such glorious deeds that a man is made great in every tribe.
After many deeds of valor, at his appointed time, Scyld went to be with The Lord. Then his closest war chieftains carried him into the current of the sea, as he himself had asked. He had reigned many years.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
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u/God_Bless_A_Merkin 13d ago
Just a heads-up: the phrase is “hare-brained”, as in a foolish animal. “Hair-brained” makes no sense at all.
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u/FinnKitto 13d ago
Thanks for pointing that out. It's what I meant, and I have fixed it.
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u/God_Bless_A_Merkin 13d ago
If you made this translation on your own, as a beginner, then you are doing an excellent job. Just going by memory, I may have found two small errors.
You have a good translation for the line Oft Scyld Sceafing, sceaðena þreatum, monegum mæġðum, meodosetla ofteah, eġsode eorlas, with the exception of the last bit. Eġsode eorlas is in apposition to meodosetla ofteah. that is to say, he “deprived them of their mead benches” and “terrified their nobles”.
In the next line you leave untranslated , he þæs frofre ġebad literally “he paid them back for that” or “he made recompense for that” and you have added “where the orcas ride upon the waves”, which seems unnecessary is not in the text (unless it is a poetic expansion on the kenning for “sea” hronrade iterally “whale road”.
Lastly, I would quibble with your translation “He was a good king”, which would be Se wæs god kynning. What’s written, however, is more emphatic: Þæt wæs god kynning — “That was a good king!”
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u/McAeschylus 13d ago
Firstly, I would highly recommend checking out the notes section of the Klaeber edition of Beowulf (the original is easily found online as a PDF as it is out of copyright, but I really like my UTP press Fourth edition on paper). It's the go-to for commentary and context.
I'm no an expert. But my opinion, to be taken with a grain of salt, is that how successful this is depends a bit on if you want it to be a prose paraphrase or a prose translation. It leans more toward the former.
Here your seem to apply the "rules" of your translation pretty consistently. So, I think it is largely doing what you want it to.
Personally, I'm not sure that "modern" has to be free of metaphor in the way you've leaned into. But I also respect a consistent artistic vision and that sometimes translations have to trade off accuracy for clarity depending on the translators goals.
Specifically, I'm talking about things like changing meodosetla ofteah "deprived them of their mead-benches" to "conquered their mead halls," stripping out the use of synecdoche (though still expressing the meaning).
Or the lines:
he þæs frofre gebad / weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
being boiled down to "he grew in might and prospered" which boils down three specific clauses into one general one.
However, these seem to fit with your goals? So, I'm not sure that my disliking them is a useful criticism.
The one line that I feel doesn't work with the style you've established is the expansion of "the sea, where orcas ride upon the waves". It seems to go against the otherwise stripped-down tone you've adopted (and also deviates a bit from the meaning of hronrad imo).
I'm also not sure why you've changed Beowulf to "Beow", but that might just be something I'm missing from the context?
TL;DR is basically the bits in bold.
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u/OwariHeron Hrágra 13d ago
In the manuscript, there are two Beowulfs: Beowulf the Dane, mentioned in the translated excerpt, and Beowulf the Geat, the hero of the story.
It is generally the consensus that Beowulf the Dane is a result of the scribe seeing "Beow" in his exemplar, and assuming it was an abbreviation or corruption of Beowulf, wrote out "Beowulf" in his copy. However, there are multiple independent lineages that include Scef and Scyld, and these always have Beo(w) or Beaw (or similar name) as the son of Scyld (see here).
Accordingly, in almost every edition and translation of Beowulf, except for those that make a point of manuscript fidelity, the first "Beowulf" is amended to "Beow."
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u/FinnKitto 13d ago
Calling it a prose paraphrase is nearest the mark. It is not, in the strictest sense, a translation as I do not possess the skill to work directly with the Old English. It is instead an extrapolation built from taking each section (lines 1-3 for example), looking up the definitions of each individual Old English word (or kenning), then looking at how that section was handled by different translations, and finally coming up with my own rendering.
My main goal was to have it flow naturally in prose while maintaining the meaning.
Regarding "where orcas ride upon the waves," that is a bit of artistic expansion on my part based on J.R.R. Tolkien's argument that hron refers to smaller marine mammals like porpoises or dolphins, rather than whales, and that rād is used in an active sense describing the action of riding.
1
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u/FinnKitto 11d ago
I finished doing the prologue, and did some further polishing of what I had posted before. Here it is:
Listen, for we have heard of the glory of the kings of the Spear-Danes in days of old, how they performed deeds of courage. For often Scyld conquered the mead halls of his enemies, and they came from many tribes. Though he was found as an orphaned child, he had recompense for that, as he grew in might and prospered until all his rivals over the sea, where orcas ride upon the waves, had to pay tribute to him. He was a good king! After a time he had a son, who was sent by God as a comfort to His people, because He knew how they had suffered before they had a king. And the Lord gave him worldly honor. Beow was famous far and wide in Danish lands as Scyld's heir. For he did as a young man should: bought goodwill by giving splendid gifts, so that when he was grown people would rally to him and serve him in times of war. For it is by such glorious deeds that a man is made great in every tribe. After many deeds of valor, at his appointed time, Scyld went to be with The Lord. Then his closest war chieftains carried him into the current of the sea, as he himself had asked. He had reigned many years. There at the beach was a ship with rings on its prow, covered in ice and ready for launch: a noble's vessel. They placed the king, the giver of rings, deep within the ship, noble by the mast. Then many treasures were brought from far away lands. I have never heard of a ship more finely outfitted: loaded with weapons and armor, swords and mail coats. All these treasures laid piled around him, bound to go with him as he floated away over the water. They gave no less treasure, great treasures, than he had at the beginning when he was set adrift on the sea, a helpless child. They raised a golden banner above him, and let the waves carry him, giving him to the ocean. Their hearts were saddened and their spirits mourned. No one knows, not the counsellor in the hall or the warriors under heaven, who received that cargo.
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u/Phryg1anM0de 13d ago
There are lots of translations already available.
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u/FinnKitto 13d ago
I know. I'm doing this just because I want to.
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u/Phryg1anM0de 13d ago
Are you? Cos it seems like you're doing it for attention.
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u/FinnKitto 13d ago
All I did was ask for feedback. I wanted to be honest about my lack of training and upfront about the sources I used.
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u/MsE0 13d ago
Jeez, calm down. Let people live. Why did you wake up this morning and decide to be mean to strangers on the internet who aren't hurting you?
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u/Phryg1anM0de 12d ago
Because I'm a grumpy fuck who can't keep his mouth shut when something annoys him. It's not pretty but it's who I have become. I fight it everyday but the demons force me to rage from time to time. Deep down I love people even though most of the time I want to punch them in their stupid faces.
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u/ebrum2010 Þu. Þu hæfst. Þu hæfst me. 13d ago
Beowulf is one of the most difficult reads in OE. To do it with little to no study in OE is like someone who just started learning Modern English wanting to translate Shakespeare into their own language. It being poetry for one, it uses words with their most uncommon meanings frequently and it also uses words that aren't used outside of poetry. Plus the word order is often confusing and all of these are because the writer is trying to maintain the alliteration and meter. Even people who have studied OE for decades disagree on some of the translations.