I have just finished reading Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley.  Not without some trepidation, because the reviews in the mass media and on Twitter all advertised it as a translation into current Internet idioms.  That could have been awful, but I’m here to tell you it was all just clickbait. This is a “new translation” in the sense that the English used here is from the last half century.  Sure, the pull quotes that they quoted are in there, but they’re not important to the text.  One of the most popular lines to quote looks frankly spliced in to attract attention.

This is what I was afraid of

The words in the book are much better than the ones in the reviews. MDH uses the difference in language between the current world and standard modern English as a tool. The narrator, as I hear him[1], is the same guy who narrated the original. He’s old and getting a bit cranky. He puts in some contemporary locutions to attract the kids’ attention, but the moment he’s got it, he slides back into an archaic mode. That contrasts with the more colloquial sound of the direct quotations, forming dissonances that are sometimes brilliant:

Only then did Hygelac begin to question his comrade, calmly, commandingly, to glean the story of the war-Geats, and take the tale for his own hall-history.

“Holy hell, Beowulf, how’d it go out there?”             (1988)

One question I always have to get out of the way in an adaptation of Beowulf is, “Did the translator do her homework?” Not even a question here. In the introduction, she deftly gets Tolkien out of the way, in accordance with Terry Pratchett’s dictum.

So I definitely liked this book. It is the fastest to read of all the versions I’ve read.  A backhanded shot at Princess Diana was completely unexpected, but worked well, too.

[1] I’m sure “him” is still the right pronoun. That’s not the case for all the characters in this book — MDH is good at making little gender-bends that stay within the original text.

For #WhanThatAprilleDay19 , a celebration of ancient languages.

In the Anglo-Saxon poem called “The Battle of Maldon”, when we come to the point where the Viking raiders cross over the causeway to the battlefield where the English army awaits, the poet says:

Wōdon þā wælwulfas (for wætere ne murnon),
wīċinga werod west ofer Pantan,
ofer scīr wæter scyldas wēgon,
lidmen tō lande linde bǣron.                                      (Lines 96-99)

Linden-wood (left)

This is usually translated something like, “Battle-wolves waded ashore, not worrying about the water. The Viking band crossed the Panta, over shining water, shields aloft, these men of the fleet towards land advanced their linden shields.” Based on my long expertise in Old English (12 weeks next Tuesday), I think this misses something important about that last line. Translated literally it says, “Sailors to land, linden-wood they bore.”

First fact: A few weeks ago, I was talking to a guy at work. Him: “I may miss the meeting; my daughter is about to have my second grandchild, so I may have to go down to Florida all of a sudden. Me: “You keep your grandchildren in Florida, and you live in New York? That’s a switch!” [Sensible chuckles all around.] This is not good comedy, because comedy is not welcome in an office. It’s something a natural smart-aleck like me adopts because people like jokes as long as they don’t disturb the solemnity of the hierarchy.

Second fact: One of the things the Norsemen wanted from Britain was wood for ship-building.

Let’s suppose for a minute that concern for hierarchy and solemnity in front of authority figures was as important in a medieval English court (where poems would be performed) as they are in an office today. Let’s imagine that smart-alecks became poets back then, and one such was this poet. What’s he really saying? He just used “shields” in line 98, so the audience is expecting some kind of appositive involving wood. Then he drops line 99. It’s the same joke I made in the office: “Sailors bringing wood to the land, for a change!”

It’s awesomely cool to find a kindred spirit talking to me across a gulf of a thousand years. Hey, Maldon-poet, wherever you are: I got it!