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kennings. The Edda shows almost all stages in this development short of the final consummation, from the austere art of the Vǫlundarkviða to the ornate manner of the Hymiskviða. When we take into consideration that the Old poet had at his disposal, some 20 words for ‘man,’ 23 for ‘hero,’ 48 for ‘prince,’ 32 for ‘brave,’ 20 for ‘treasure,’ 25 for ‘battle,’ 30 for ‘wise,’[1] and so forth, it will be clear that, in order to avoid the overhanging danger of monotony,[2] all the resources of the English vocabulary ought to be at one’s disposal. I am thinking chiefly of the material in the Scottish and English ballads. The reader ought to understand this and not balk at words like etin, fey, grisly, featly, bairn, and the like.
Of course it is important here not to weight a stanza down with an undue number of archaic and obsolete expressions. The much overpraised translations of William Morris e.g. have done more harm than good by rendering the Old Norse sagas into a most perplexing and astonishing English which requires a pretty fair acquaintance with Anglo-Saxon, Edmund Spenser, and Thomas Mallory to be rightly understanded. Vestigia terrent! Still worse is an injudicious mixture of Latin and Anglo-Saxon elements. As to this, the very respectable scholar Benjamin Thorpe should be a warning and an example.[3]
The proper rendition of Old Norse proper names presents a knotty problem to the would-be translator. Shall he translate them all, to the best of his knowledge and that is a difficult task; or some only, and if so which? Or shall he leave all untranslated—much the easiest course. Or shall he try to render only those parts of proper nouns, which are of more general significance? E.g.: shall he call the dwarf Alvís or Allwise; Thor, Sithgrani’s son or Longbeard’s son; the seeress, Hyndla or Houndling; the localities Gnipalund and Hátun, Cliffholt and Hightown? Shall we say Alfheim, Elfham, or Alf-home? Are we to render Skioldungar, Ylfingar by Shieldings and Wolfings? And so forth, and so forth. I do not hesitate to say that on the translator's tact and skill in meeting this problem—for dodge it he cannot—will depend in large measure the artistic merit of his work and its modicum of palatableness to the modern reader.
Aside from these obstacles, the difficulty of reproducing alliterative veres in English has, to my mind, been exaggerated. To be sure, English has lopped
- ↑ See Richard M. Meyer, Die altgermanische Poesie, nach ihren formelhaften Elementen beschrieben, p. 170 ff., and Theodor Wisén, Om Ordfogningen i den äldre Eddan, p. 2 ff.
- ↑ I note, for example, that in the 43 stanzas of the Helgakvidha Hundingsbana alone there occur 19 words for ‘hero.’ No apologies are needed for my translation being even more monotonous, stylistically, and more narrowly Germanic, than the original. Any yielding to the impulse to ‘touch up’ the leanness of the manner of poems of this nature by resorting to allusions, conceptions, descriptive epithets and adjectives foreign to their habit will at once introduce a false note.
- ↑ Let me cite the first four stanzas of his rendering of the Hymiskvita as a sample of barbaric and absurd mixing of these elements—one wonders whether he had any feeling whatsoever for the emotional connotation of words: 1) Once the celestial gods had been taking fish and were in compotation, ere they the truth discovered. Rods they shook and blood inspected, when they found at Ægir’s a lack of kettles. 2) Sat the rockdweller glad as a child, much like the son of Miscorblindi. In his eyes looked Ygg's son steadfastly: “Thou to the Aesir shalt oft a compotation give.” 3) Caused trouble to the Jotun th’ unwelcome worded As: he forthwith meditated vengeance on the gods. Sif’s husband he besought a kettle him to bring “in which beer for all of you I may brew.” 4) The illustrious gods found that impossible, nor could the exalted powers it accomplish till from true-heartedness Ty to Hlorrithi much friendly counsel gave.
