CONCERNING A PROPOSED TRANSLATION OF THE EDDA
It is strange—to say the least—that there is no good complete translation of the Poetic Edda on the market.
There is Benjamin Thorpe’s version, published in 1866. This was a rather poor performance at the time and is now out of print. It was, to be sure, reprinted in the so-called “Norræna Series”, but as to this, least said is soonest mended. For that matter, I never was able to arrive at any conclusion as to whether Thorpe’s performance was meant to be in verse or prose.
The very respectable prose version of Vígfusson in the Corpus Poeticum Boreale, made in 1884, is now thoroughly antiquated. At best, it represented the frequently erratic and generally unacceptable theories of that brilliant scholar. It is on the market for those who can pay $30. It has not been, nor does it deserve to be, reprinted.
Lastly, there is Olive Bray’s pedestrian translation (1908) of the mythological poems of the Edda published in the Transactions of the Viking Club.[1] As no more has appeared, these ten years, it is safe to say that the undertaking has, for the time being, been abandoned.
Fortunately, it is not likely that this regrettable condition will continue long. As I learn, there are now no less than five new versions under way, nearing completion, or completed. It is not easy to forecast how good these will be; but the hope is justifiable that the publishers will consult competent scholars on their respective merits. My own translation is one of those nearing completion. While engaged in this work the following reflections and considerations have occurred to me.
When envisaging the task of translating the Poetic Edda into a modern Germanic tongue it becomes plain that two, and only two, courses are open: either a rendering into prose; which means, inevitably, a total (and to my feeling unwarranted) obliteration of its salient characteristics, or else a faithful reproduction, or imitation, if you please, of the original in the original metres.
Now, as regards the use of prose for the rendering of Old Germanic poetry, I have no prejudice against it. In fact, I confess that Tinker's prose rendering of Beowulf appeals rather more to me than, say, Gummere’s or Leslie Hall’s versions in the original metre. Nor is it my intention to enter here into a discussion as to the merits of prose, as against verse, translations of Old Germanic monuments in general. Such a discussion simply does not apply to the Edda— which is not—like Beowulf, the other great Anglo-Saxon poems, and the Old Saxon Heliand—, an epic poem composed in one and the same metre throughout; but, rather, a collection of poetic material of the most various kinds. It is to be recalled that among its forty odd numbers there are didactic poems, genealogical rigmaroles, roystering dramatic ballads, elegiac songs, rough, coarse ‘flytings,’ purely narrative poems, and still other kinds. And hardly two agree in their handling of the three basic stanza forms employed, let alone stylistic
differences. It would obviously be a hopeless and vain task to make any prose
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- ↑ Viking Club Translation Series. Vol. 2.
