On Translating Beowulf by J.R.R.Tolkien

Author:J.R.R.Tolkien [J.R.R.Tolkien]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-05T06:00:00+00:00

more than just indicating the general scope of their sense: for instance, contenting oneself with

‘shield’ alone to render Old English bord, lind, rand and scyld. The variation, the sound of different words, is a feature of the style that should to some degree be represented, even if the differences of original meaning are neglected by the poet or no longer remembered-events which in early Old

English poetry probably occurred far less often than is sometimes supposed. But in cases where Old English has built up a long list of synonyms, or partial equivalents, to denote things with which Northern heroic verse was specially concerned - such as the sea, and ships, and swords, and

especially men (warriors and sailors), it will sometimes be found impossible to match its richness of variation even with the most indiscriminate collection of words. For man in Beowulf there appear at least ten virtual synonyms: beorn, ceorl, freca, guma, hæleð and hæle, leod, mann and manna, rinc, secg, and wer.6 This list can be extended to at least twenty-five items by the inclusion of words whose sense remained in varying degrees more specific, though in heroic verse they could as a rule replace the simple mann: words implying noble birth such as æðeling and eorl; meaning youths or young men, such as cniht, hyse, maga, mecg; or denoting the various companions, followers, and servants of lords and kings, such as gædeling, geneat, gesið, scealc, ðegn, or explicitly signifying

‘warrior’, such as cempa, oretta, wiga, wigend. With this list not even a hotch-potch series such as man, warrior, soldier, mortal, brave, noble, boy, lad, bachelor, knight, esquire, fighter, churl, hero, fellow, cove, wight, champion, guy, individual, bloke, will compete: not even in length, certainly not in fitness. In such a case (the most extreme) we have to be content with less variation - the total effect is probably not much changed: our ears, unaccustomed to this kind of thing, may be as much impressed by less. There is, however, no need to increase our poverty by avoiding words of

chivalry. In the matter of armour and weapons we cannot avoid them, since our only terms for such things, now vanished, have come down through the Middle Ages, or have survived from them.

There is no reason for avoiding knights, esquires, courts, and princes. The men of these legends were conceived as kings of chivalrous courts, and members of societies of noble knights, real Round Tables. If there be any danger of calling up inappropriate pictures of the Arthurian world, it is a less one than the danger of too many warriors and chiefs begetting the far more inept picture of Zulus or Red Indians. The imagination of the author of Beowulf moved upon the threshold of Christian chivalry, if indeed it had not already passed within.

The translation of the compounds sets a different problem, already glanced at above. A

satisfactory solution will seldom be arrived at by translation of the elements separately and sticking them together again: for instance, by rendering the

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