As I continue to finalize my reading lists, I want to make sure I regularly read from all my lists, in order to form connections and keep my ideas flowing over the course of my exam process. I also want to keep practicing my Old English translation, so I have been concentrating on a poem that I have been turning over in my head since I read it for the first time several months ago in Seamus Heaney’s haunting translation: Deor. Much of its ear-worm quality comes from the fact that it has a repeating refrain – this makes it rather rare amongst Anglo-Saxon poems, as Bradley points out (362). It also particularly appeals to me because it involves a correspondence of lived experience between the speaker and figures from the past, as all are human with the capacity for suffering and triumph. Moreover, there is no distinction between the suffering of men and women – the anguish of a pregnant rape victim is depicted alongside a crippled and enslaved hero. What follows is my very rough translation of the poem, for which I consulted Murray MacGillivray’s notes and glossary, as well as several different translations. I intend to do a more poetic translation at some point in time, but this version will help provide a sense of what the poem is about before I dive any further into it.
Original:
Ed. Murray McGillivray. Online Corpus of Old English Poetry (OCOEP).
Welund him be wurman wræces cunnade.
Anhydig eorl earfoþa dreag,
hæfde him to gesiþþe sorge ond longaþ,
wintercealde wræce, wean oft onfond,
5
siþþan hine Niðhad on nede legde
swoncre seonobende on syllan monn.
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
Beadohilde ne wæs hyre broþra deaþ
on sefan swa sar swa hyre sylfre þing:
10
þæt heo gearolice ongieten hæfde
þæt heo eacen wæs— æfre ne meahte
þriste geþencan, hu ymb þæt sceolde.
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
We þæt Mæðhilde monge gefrugnon
15
wurdon grundlease Geates frige,
þæt hi seo sorglufu slæp ealle binom.
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
Ðeodric ahte þritig wintra
Mæringa burg— þæt wæs monegum cuþ.
20
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
We geascodan Eormanrices
wylfenne geþoht; ahte wide folc
Gotena rices. Þæt wæs grim cyning.
Sæt secg monig sorgum gebunden,
25
wean on wenan, wyscte geneahhe
þæt þæs cynerice ofercumen wære.
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
Siteð sorgcearig sælum bidæled,
on sefan sweorceð, sylfum þinceð
30
þæt sy endeleas earfoða dæl.
Mæg þonne geþencan þæt geond þas woruld
witig dryhten wendeþ geneahhe,
eorle monegum are gesceawað,
wislicne blæd, sumum weana dæl.
35
Þæt ic bi me sylfum secgan wille,
þæt ic hwile wæs Heodeninga scop,
dryhtne dyre. Me wæs Deor noma.
Ahte ic fela wintra folgað tilne,
holdne hlaford, oþþæt Heorrenda nu,
40
leoðcræftig monn londryht geþah,
þæt me eorla hleo ær gesealde.
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
My Translation
Welund himself knew misery by worms.
The brave man knew hardship,
had to himself for company sorrow and longing,
winter-cold misery; He often found woe,
since Nithhad by force laid a thin sinew-bond onto the better man.
That came to pass, this also may!
Beadohilde was not as sorrowful from her brothers’ death
as from her own thing,
that she certainly understood that she was pregnant;
She was never able to think confidently,
about what she should do.
That came to pass, this also may!
We found out that for Maethhilde,
many became the bottomless embraces of the Geat,
that the sorrowful love deprived her of all sleep.
That came to pass, this also may!
Theodric possessed for thirty winters the city of Maeringa;
That was known to many.
That came to pass, this also may!
We discovered the wolfen thought of Ermanaricus;
He occupied widely the people of the kingdom of the Goths.
That was a harsh king.
Many a man lived bound to sorrows,
woe in expectation,
often wishing that this kingdom was overcome.
That came to pass, this also may!
He lived sorrowful, deprived of joy,
he grew dark in his spirit,
it seemed to him that the troubles would be endless.
I might then think that throughout this world the wise Lord changes enough,
shows honour to many a man, true splendor,
a portion of woes to some.
That I by myself wish to tell,
that I once was a scop of the Heodenings,
dear Lord.
The name ‘Deor’ was mine.
I had for many winters a good fellowship, a loyal lord,
until now Heorrenda, a man skilled in poetry,
received a privilege that the protecting lord once gave to me.
That came to pass, this also may!
Upon the first few readings of the poem, Deor seems like a poem of hope and determination in the face of adversity. The speaker relates various hardships of figures from Gothic legend, many details of which have been obscured by time, and insists in a recurring refrain that if their troubles came to an end, his lot likewise has a chance of improving: “þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.” (l. 7, 13, 17, 20, 27, 42). There has been a great deal of consistency in translators’ approaches to this seemingly simple line – Seamus Heaney renders it with his characteristic simple elegance by having his speaker reassure himself that “That passed over, this can too” (Heaney 7). S.A.J. Bradley, known for his linguistically accurate prose translations, gives “That passed away: so may this” (7). Even Burton Raffel, who has been known to approach Old English translation with poetic creativity (such as his insertion of ‘a convent of wooden nuns’ into his version of “A Woman’s Message” (Raffel 36)), employs the phrase “That passed, and so may this” (7). Closer philological examination of the poem shows, however, that this short phrase may not be so easy to render into modern English as it seems. While one of the meanings given in Bosworth-Toller’s dictionary for “ofereode” is indeed “to pass, pass off or away, be over, come to an end,” another is “to come upon, attack (of disease, sleep, etc. ),” “to conquer,” or “to pass a moral limit, to transgress.” While all of these meanings might indicate that an event has happened, not all of them are a reassuring statement that since the mythological figures that the speaker has depicted have ended happily. The ambiguity is heightened by the fact that the poet often leaves the end of his mytho-historical vignettes unsaid, presumably relying on his audience’s cultural knowledge of the characters depicted within – knowledge that has in many cases not survived.
An exception to this dearth of backstory concerns the story of Weland the Smith, which provides material for the vignettes in the first part of the poem. He is well-known in Germanic mythology, and Raffel uses Weland’s story to begin his translation on a triumphant note, letting readers know that the sorrow had indeed passed. He writes: “Wayland, a legendary smith whom Nithad had crippled and enslaved, forged himself metal wings, killed Nithad’s sons, drugged and violated Nithad’s daughter, Beadhild, and flew to safety. Nithad’s kingdom was Wermland, now Western Sweden” (Raffel 57). This backstory sounds triumphant enough, if one ignores the fact that the second character that Deor compares himself to is Beadhild, the drugged and violated. Furthermore, none of this triumph is related in the poem – only Weland’s maiming and enslavement in Nithad’s “wintercealde” kingdom is poetically rendered. We hear of cruel kings, raped and abandoned women, and a city that endured the occupation of a tyrant for thirty years. Yes, these happenings pass away, but this does not mean that those to whom they happen survive them with any sense of wholeness. Rather than taking solace in the fact that the men and women of old made it through their sorrows that passed over, the speaker may be preparing himself for the horror that may be visited upon him, now that he has lost the favour of his “holdne hlaford.” In this light, it might be more accurate to translate “ofereode” as “come to pass” in the dictionary definition of “to come upon, attack” rather than simply “pass over.” This robs the poem of its hopeful outlook, but I think it might restore some of the melodrama to Deor’s narrative – he does, after all, compare the loss of his job to some of the worst hardships imaginable. We will never know if Deor’s plight passed over, but my exams also may!
I would welcome other perspectives on Deor translation – anyone have a favourite translation or way of rendering the refrain?
Works Cited
Bradley, S. A. J., trans. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: Dent, 1982.
Heaney, Seamus. “Seamus Heaney reads Deor.” Poems Out Loud. W.W. Norton & Company. 24 August 2014 <http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/heaney_reads_deor/>.
Raffel, Burton, trans. Poems from the Old English. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964.
Oure Librarie Laitid 