I have to agree with Bob that Mike's about nailed it, though I wish to add one caveat: If you're going to translate the Beowulf or the Elder Edda, you better transpose sentences and fragments thereof. Here's a chunk translated word for word, from the great dirge at the end of the Wulf:
Constructed there weather people
barrow on headland that was high and broad
to wayfarers far visible
and timbered in ten days
battle-bold's monument fire-leavings
wall built around so it worthily
most clever men find might.
Here's the original, breathtaking in its beauty:
Gewohrten tha, Wedra leode
hleo on hoe, sa was heg ond brad
weg-lithendum wide gesyne
ond betimbredon on tyn dagum
bedurofe's becan. Bronde lafe
wealle beworten swa hit weorthlicost
foresnotre men findon mighton.
I've done that from memory, and my Anglo Saxon orthography leaves much to be desired. Now, how do you translate such glorious verse, that transliterates so horribly? Here it is in our translation:
High on the headland they heaped his grave-mound
which seafaring sailors would spy from afar.
Ten days they toiled on the scorched hilltop,
the cleverest men skillfully crafting
a long-home built for the bold in battle.
They walled with timbers ...etc.
Sometimes languages are so far apart that the translator must reorder matters to suit his hearers. One of Mike's most interesting experiments is his translation of Petrarch into tetrameters, not pentameters. And of course Wilbur gives us the French Alexandrines as pentameters. So sure, Svein, try anything and see if it works. I think the point is to reproduce as closely as we can the poetic effect of the original--not slavishly to reproduce it.--Tim
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