[Catherine Chandler]

Clever. Competent. But overall, what Orwn said.

[Rose Kelleher]

Re: "moth ate myth." I thought someone here had already pointed out that at the time the original was written, the words being eaten were likely the words of a myth, but now I can't find that comment (whoever it was, did they eat their words?)

I love the way it sounds, but it does narrow the meaning. To say that someone is no wiser for having read a lot of mythology is a lot different from saying that someone is no wiser for having read a lot of words. If the translator is an expert on classical mythology (I can think of a few who frequent this board), it's funny, but otherwise I think I prefer the more general "words." It just seems more true that way.

[Skip Dewahl]

True to the poet's intent and never halting, this is a successful rendering of Anglo-Saxon verse. One thing, the crib implies that what the moth may have ingested was something bound: "chewed on the glory-bound wisdom", or am I just over-thinking this, and that the meaning is "encircled in glory", i..e., with a halo around it, as it were?
Anyway, another to contend with, you all. Congrats to you, as well.

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by Orwn Acra

I am not quite sure why "word" pupates to "myth" or how a moth could eat a myth in the same concrete way it could eat a word on a page. The metaphor has been netted only to then escape. Also, I do not associate myths with bards' songs, though this is less of a problem.

I think "word" is not to be taken literally, but representative of literature, knowledge, history etc. etc. Remember, there was no printing press, and manuscripts were rare and precious, usually written by monks, so "word" here is fraught with a kind of sacredness which is hard to appreciate in this day and age, and which adds to the overall irony of the piece. As to not associating myths with bards' songs, I couldn't disagree more: monsters, dragons, gods, heroes, tales of derring-do...sounds pretty mythic to me.

Maybe this is an a priori argument for "moth ate myth", but the phrase is not such a stretch, in my opinion, and is such a gem that it deserves a little poetic license.

[Susan McLean]

One of my problems with "myth" is that we think of myths as being something that is not true, whereas religion is considered true. The words in question may have been a hero tale or a religious work, but I would bet that the original author thought they were true, or at least literature (not myth).

Susan

[Janice D. Soderling]

As Adam said, "Impossible to fault." At least by me. Not the first time we've seen one of these, and hopefully not the last.

[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks, everybody, for the kind words, objections, quibbles, and various takes. For whatever it's worth, here's what I was thinking.

This is one of those much-translated poems that are only worth doing if you can find something different to do. So I wanted very much to avoid the ultra-literal "A moth ate words" or the very common "A worm ate words" (the Raffel translation that was my first meeting with the poem), which has the disadvantage of giving away the solution to the riddle in the first line. I'd like the riddle to actually be a riddle.

I decided on "myth" not just for sonic reasons, but because I wanted to focus on the idea of the poem-as-sung-myth, an idea that to me is inherent in the phrase "the foundation of the strong." Modern people may not think of those literary foundation-myths as "wisdom," but medieval people didn't separate the literary and the practical so starkly.

It's those mythical stories, the content of so much epic poetry (and classical lyric poetry, too) that often populate the books that our anonymous poet would have, want to read, and find wormholes in. And if you've ever seen an actual, worm-eaten medieval book, you have a better sense of how the poem, the song, itself is destroyed by those holes. Marion has summed up very well the connections I'm making.

Another thing I hope I'm doing is connecting this riddle more with its own Anglo-Saxon milieu than with its classical model, Symphosius's riddle on the same subject.

I really do hope other translators will say more about the thinking behind their work. I'd like to understand better how I may have gone wrong in reading them.

Thanks again.

[Adam Elgar]

It's great work, Maryann. I've had no prob with myth.

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

Marion has summed up very well the connections I'm making.

Takes a medieval nerd...