Beowulf, and the Fight at Finnsburg, a translation into modern English prose

Hall, John R. Clark | 1901 | English | Translations

Tinker's Review

J. R. C. Hall’s Translation

Beowulf, and the Fight at Finnsburg, a translation into modern English prose, with an Introduction and Notes, by John R. Clark Hall, M.A., Ph.D. With twelve illustrations1. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Company, Lim., 1901. 8o, pp. xlv, 203.


Tenth English Translation. Prose.
Translator, and Circumstances of Publication.

Hitherto Dr. Hall had been chiefly known to the learned world for his excellent Anglo-Saxon Dictionary for Students.

Up to this time no prose translation had appeared in England since 1876, save Earle’s2, which for the elementary student was practically useless. Moreover, this translation was the first to embody the results of various studies on the poem during the past decade.

Contents.

Unlike the preceding works on Beowulf, it may be said that the introductory and illustrative matter in this book is of quite as much importance as the translation. The author says of his book:—

‘The following pages comprise a short statement of what is actually known with respect to the poem of Beowulf, another statement of what seems to me most likely to be true amongst the almost innumerable matters of conjecture concerning it, and a few words of literary appreciation.’ —Introduction, p. ix.

Statements similar to these have been put forth by other translators of the poem, but the material of their volume has not always borne them out. The studies of the poem in the Introduction are sufficient for a school edition of Beowulf—a similar body of information is not found in any of the existing editions—while annotations of some importance to the elementary student are found in the notes and running comment. The book contains, beside the translation, a discussion of the form, language, geographical allusions, date, and composition of the poem, as well as a useful, though inaccurate, bibliography3.

Text Used.

The translation is founded on the text of A. J. Wyatt, Cambridge, 1894. Dr. Hall does not always follow the interpretations given in Wyatt’s glossary, nor is the punctuation of the translation conformed to that of the Old English text.

Indebtedness to Preceding Scholars.

In his translation Dr. Hall seems to be most indebted to the work of Professor Earle4 (see lines 4, 71, 517, 852, 870, 926, 996, 1213, 1507, 2021, 3034, &c.).

Frequent reference is also made to the work of Cosijn, Aanteekeningen op den Beowulf (1892). The work of other scholars, such as Bugge, Heyne, Socin, is also referred to.

Nature of the Translation.

The translation is a literal prose version. It is constantly interrupted by bits of running comment, designed to overcome the inherent obscurity of the poem, or to afford an elaborate digest of the story if read without the translation (p. 7).

The rendering avoids archaisms.

Bugge’s restoration is used at line 3150; the passage at line 2215 is not restored.

VIII.
Unferth taunts Beowulf. Beowulf’s Contest with Breca.

(Lines 499–558.)

(499–505). Now comes a jarring note. Unferth, a Danish courtier, is devoured by jealousy, and taunts Beowulf.
Then Unferth, the son of Ecglaf, who sat at the feet of the lord of the Scyldings, spoke, and gave vent to secret thoughts of strife,—the journey of Beowulf, the brave sea-farer, was a great chagrin to him, for he grudged that any other man under heaven should ever obtain more glory on this middle-earth than he himself.
(506–528). ‘Art thou the same Beowulf,’ says he, ‘who ventured on a foolhardy swimming match with Breca on the open sea in winter, for seven days, and got beaten? A worse fate is in store for thee when thou meetest Grendel!’
‘Art thou that Beowulf who strove with Breca, contested with him on the open sea, in a swimming contest, when ye two for vainglory tried the floods, and ventured your lives in deep water for idle boasting? Nor could any man, friend or foe, dissuade you from your sorry enterprise when ye swam on the sea; when ye compassed the flowing stream with your arms, meted out the sea-paths, battled with your hands, and glided over the ocean; when the sea, the winter’s flood, surged with waves. Ye two toiled in the water’s realm seven nights; he overcame you at swimming, he had the greater strength. Then, at morning time, the ocean cast him up on the Heathoræmas’ land. Thence, dear to his people, he sought his beloved fatherland, the land of the Brondings, his fair stronghold-city, where he had subjects and treasures and a borough. The son of Beanstan performed faithfully all that he had pledged himself to. So I expect for thee a worse fatality,—though thou hast everywhere prevailed in rush of battle,—gruesome war,—if thou darest await Grendel at close quarters for the space of a night.’

The extract is typical of all that is best in the translation. It is a thoroughly accurate piece of work, failing only where Wyatt’s edition of the text is unsatisfactory. Translations like ‘gave vent to secret thoughts of strife’ and ‘thou hast prevailed in the rush of battle’ show that the work is the outcome of long thought and deep appreciation. At times the translation, as here, verges on a literary rendering. But in this respect the first part of the poem is vastly superior to the later parts, though all three are marred by extreme literalness. Dr. Hall did not always escape the strange diction that has so often before disfigured the translations of Beowulf:—

Line 2507, ‘my unfriendly hug finished his bony frame.’
„ 2583, ‘The Geat’s free-handed friend crowed not in pride of victory.’
„ 2655, ‘Fell the foe and shield the Weder-Geat Lord’s life.’
„ 2688, ‘the public scourge, the dreadful salamander.’
„ 2834, ‘show his form’ (said of the Dragon).
„ 2885, ‘hopelessly escheated from your breed.’

It is also rather surprising to learn from Dr. Hall that Beowulf was one of those that ‘advanced home government’ (l. 3005).

It should be added that the explanatory comment which constantly interrupts the translation, often six or eight times in a section, is annoying, both because it distracts the attention and because it is often presented in a style wholly inappropriate to the context.

But this absence of ease and dignity does not hinder Dr. Hall’s translation from being an excellent rendering of the matter of the poem, at once less fanciful than Earle’s5 and more modern than Garnett’s6, its only rivals as a literal translation. That it conveys an adequate notion of the style of Beowulf, however, it is impossible to affirm.

1. Chiefly of Anglo-Saxon antiquities.

2. See supra, p. 91.

3. See my forthcoming review of the book in the Journal of Germanic Philology.

4. See supra, p. 91.

5. See supra, p. 91.

6. See supra, p. 83.