Challenge #1: Representing the economy of OE verse

Old English poetry is notoriously difficult to translate in a way that sticks for very long: those of us who know how to read it in something like the original generally find translations pretty tepid, and I don't think that this attitude comes mainly from scholarly crankiness only.

ECONOMY of EXPRESSION. One of the biggest challenges in translating OE poetry is to find a way of representing its incredibly compact way of proceeding. Some lines of course parallel modern English almost exactly. For example,

        Ða abraham spræc to his ombihtum (Genesis A, l. 2880)

translates almost word for word into idiomatic contemporary English:
     
        Then Abraham spoke to his ministers.

But many other lines have to be represented in present day English by supplying a multitude of little words like prepositions and articles, which are generally squeezed out of poetry in Old English.

Take for example these relatively typical lines, again from Genesis:

                                        flod wæs adæled
            under heah-rodore halgum mihtum,
            wæter of wætrum þam þe wuniað gyt
            under fæstenne folca hrofes.   (Genesis A, ll. 150-53)

and compare them to this rough translation:

                                            (The) flood was divided

            under high-heaven (by) holy powers,

            water from (the) waters (for) those who dwell still

under (the) stronghold (of the) roof (of the) peoples.

I´ve put the little words it´s necessary for translators to add in parentheses, and it´s easy to see that over a long stretch, a contemporary translation must pad out the wonderfully telegraphic style of OE poetry.  Why?  Mainly because OE can signal syntactical relationships with case endings alone that contemporary English has to supply with prepositions. In some ways, translating OE poetry with an eye to its compact nature means engaging in a war against prepositions. For example, it might be possible to squeeze out a few of the added words in the translation above:


                                            (The) flood was divided

            under high-heaven (by) holy powers,

            water from waters (for) those who dwell still

under (the) stronghold (of the) peoples' roof.

This is a fight that can't really be won, but requires constant vigilance against stringing together whole tracts of prepositional phrases with definite articles stuck in them. If it wouldn't be too maddening, I think it might be a cool idea to retain the parentheses in a published translation to give at least a possible taste of how the original poetry flows.

Another shorter example:

           torht-mod hæle tiber onsægde,
           cyninge engla.                 
                                     (Genesis A 1501-1502)

Again have a look at this translation with added words in parentheses:

           (the) bright-minded hero made (a) sacrifice
           (to the) King (of) angels.

It´s really tempting to try to translate in a gloss-like fashion, but the results sound very alien in modern English:

            bright-minded hero made sacrifice
            (to) angels´ King.

I don´t know, maybe this works on some levels, but readability certainly suffers.

Tomorrow´s post: poetic compounds.