On Translating Beowulf

A challenge to any translator: Beowulf parallel text of lines 210–228, with the inaccurate[6][lower-alpha 1] French of Hubert Pierquin,[7] 1912

Tolkien comments on the risk of using a translation as a substitute for study with grammar and dictionary, calling it an abuse, and writing that

On the strength of a nodding acquaintance of this sort (it may be supposed), one famous critic informed his public that Beowulf was 'only small beer'. Yet if beer at all, it is a drink dark and bitter: a solemn funeral-ale with the taste of death.[8]

He notes that a readable translation cannot always translate an Old English word the same way; thus eacen is rendered 'stalwart', 'broad', 'huge', and 'mighty', correctly in each case to fit the context, but losing the clue to the word's special meaning, "not 'large' but 'enlarged'".[9] The word implies, in fact, supernatural or superhuman power, like Beowulf's gift from God of "thirtyfold strength".[9] And this is just an example, Tolkien points out, of a minor challenge to the translator.

A second issue (in his view) is the compactness of Old English words, which often have no modern equivalents, and phrases which are "inevitably weakened even in prose by transference to our looser modern language".[9]

Another problem is posed by the kennings, which Tolkien calls "poetical devices, ...descriptive compounds".[10] He gives the example of sundwudu ('flood-timber') for 'ship'; some phrase like 'wave-borne timbers' is "an attempt to unfold, at the risk of dissipating it, the briefly flashed picture".[10]

Tolkien mocks "oddities" like "ten timorous trothbreakers together" (for Beowulf line 2846, in Clark Hall's unrevised version) as "reminiscent of the 'two tired toads that tried to trot to Tutbury'".[11][lower-alpha 2] He does not approve, either, of choosing needlessly colloquial words: "Too often notables, visitors and subalterns appeared instead of the more fitting, and indeed more literally accurate, counsellors, strangers, and young knights."[11]

Further, he points out that the language used by the Beowulf poet was already archaic, and the choice of words was at the time recognisably poetic. Tolkien gives as an example beorn, which meant both 'bear' and 'warrior', but only in heroic poetry could it be used to mean 'man'. He advises the translator to prefer 'striking' and 'smiting', and to avoid 'hitting' and 'whacking'.[13] But on the other hand, he criticises William Morris for using the dead and unintelligible 'leeds' for OE leode ('freemen', 'people'; cf German leute), even if antiquarians feel that the word ought to have survived. Tolkien does not accept the etymological fallacy either: mod means 'pride', not 'mood'; burg is 'stronghold', not 'borough', even though the modern word derives from the old one.

Some terms present special problems; the Beowulf poet uses at least ten synonyms for the word 'man', from wer (as in werewolf, a man-wolf) and beorn to leod and mann; Tolkien writes that in heroic verse there were over 25 terms that could at a stretch be used to mean 'man', including words like eorl (a nobleman, like 'earl'); cniht (a young man, like 'knight'); ðegn (a servant, like 'thain'); or wiga (a warrior). He argues that the translator need not avoid words from the Middle Ages that might suggest the age of chivalry: better the world of King Arthur than "Red Indians",[14] and in the case of words for armour and weapons, there is no choice.

In the case of compound words, Tolkien observes that the translator has to

hesitate between simply naming the thing denoted (so 'harp' 1065, for gomen-wudu 'play-wood'), and resolving the combination into a phrase. The former method retains the compactness of the original but loses its colour; the latter retains the colour, but even if it does not falsify or exaggerate it, it loosens and weakens the texture. Choice between the evils will vary with occasions."[15]

Tolkien concludes the section by warning the translator that even the most well-worn kennings had not lost their meaning and connotations. Whereas, he argues, the Old English word hlaford, meaning 'lord' (which derives from it) was all that was left of the antique hlafweard ('loaf-guard'; the word originally meant 'bread-keeper') in daily speech, the poetic phrases used in verse retained echoes of another world:

He who in those days said and who heard flæschama 'flesh-raiment', ban-hus 'bone-house', hreðer-loca 'heart-prison', thought of the soul shut in the body, as the frail body itself is trammelled in armour, or as a bird in a narrow cage, or steam pent in a cauldron. ... The poet who spoke these words saw in his thought the brave men of old walking under the vault of heaven upon the island earth [middangeard] beleaguered by the Shoreless Seas [garsecg] and the outer darkness, enduring with stern courage the brief days of life [læne lif], until the hour of fate [metodsceaft] when all things should perish, leoht and lif samod. But he did not say all this fully or explicitly. And therein lies the unrecapturable magic of ancient English verse for those who have ears to hear: profound feeling, and poignant vision, filled with the beauty and mortality of the world, are aroused by brief phrases, light touches, short words resounding like harp-strings sharply plucked.[1]

Tolkien states that he is going to give an account of Old English metre using modern English, bringing out "the ancestral kinship of the two languages, as well as the differences between them".[16]

Tolkien explains that each line of Old English poetry had two opposed halves, groups of words which had six possible patterns of stress, such as 'falling-falling', like

kníghts in | ármour.

4...........1     4....1

where 4 means a full lift (maximum stress) and 1 is the lowest dip in stress.

A clashing pattern would be like

on hígh | móuntains.

1.......4     4.........1

Tolkien emphasises that these are still the patterns found everywhere in modern English; poetry differs from prose, he argues, in that the poet clears away everything else, so "these patterns stand opposed to each other."[17]

Tolkien then provides "a free version of Beowulf 210-228 in this metre.[lower-alpha 3] The passage should be read slowly, but naturally: that is with the stresses and tones required solely by the sense."[18] The first few lines, which as Tolkien says are a free (non-literal) translation of the Old English, run:

In this section Tolkien describes variations on the basic patterns. For example, dips (between lifts) were usually monosyllabic, but the number of syllables was not limited by Old English metre, so a series of weak syllables was permitted in a half-line. Other variations included breaking a lift into two syllables, the first short but stressed, the second weak, with for instance 'vĕssel' in place of 'boat'.

Tolkien states that calling Old English verse alliterative is a misnomer for two reasons. Firstly it is not fundamental to the metre, which would work without it. Secondly, it does not depend on letters, as in modern English alliteration, but on sounds. Old English alliteration, then, is an "agreement of the stressed elements in beginning with the same consonant, or in beginning with no consonant."[19] Further, all words starting with any stressed vowel are considered to alliterate: he gives the example of 'old' alliterating with 'eager'.

Tolkien lays down three rules of Old English alliteration. "One full lift in each half-line must alliterate."[19] In the second half-line, only the first lift may alliterate: the second must not. In the first half-line, both lifts can alliterate; the stronger one must do so. He notes that these rules force the second half-line to have its stronger lift first, so lines tend to fall away at the end, contrasting with a "rise in intensity"[20] at the start of the next line.

Tolkien states that "The main metrical function of alliteration is to link the two separate and balanced patterns together into a complete line",[20] so it has to be as early in the second half-line as possible. It also quickens and relieves heavy patterns (which had double alliteration).

Rhyme is used only "gratuitously, and for special effects."[21] Here he gives an example from Beowulf itself, lines 212-213: 'stréamas wundon || sund wið sande' (waves wound || sea against sand), where 'wundon' actually rhymes (internally) with 'sund'. Tolkien explains: "[here] the special effect (breakers are beating on the shore) may be regarded as deliberate."[21] His version of this captures the rhyme and the alliteration, as well as the meaning:

Tolkien ends the essay with an analysis of lines 210–228 of Beowulf, providing the original text, marked up with stresses and his metrical patterns for each half-line, as well as a literal translation with poetical words underlined. He notes that there are three words for boat and for wave, five for men, four for sea: in each case some are poetical, some normal.

He also notes that sentences generally stop in the middle of a line, so "sense-break and metrical break are usually opposed."[22] He notes too that significant elements in second half-lines are often "caught up and re-echoed or elaborated",[2] giving a characteristic 'parallelism' to Beowulf. This is seen, he argues, not just in such small details, but in the parallel arrangement of narrative, descriptive and speech passages; in the use of separate passages describing incidents of strife between Swedes and Geats; and at the largest scale, in the fact that the whole poem

itself is like a line of its own verse written large, a balance of two great blocks, A + B; or like two of its parallel sentences with a single subject but no expressed conjunction. Youth + Age; he rose – fell. It may not be, at large or in detail, fluid or musical, but it is strong to stand: tough builder's work of true stone.[2]