A Book of Middle English. J. A. Burrow
cunneþ speke and rede and understonde Latyn. Þanne hyt nedeþ noʒt to have such an Englysch translacion.
Dominus:
Y denye þys argument; for þey I cunne speke and rede and understonde Latyn, þer ys moche Latyn in þeus bokes of cronyks þat y can noʒt understonde, noþer þou wiþoute studyinge and avysement and lokyng of oþer bokes. Also, þey hyt were noʒt neodful vor me, hyt is neodfol vor oþere men þat understondeþ no Latyn.
Clericus:
Men þat understondeþ no Latyn may lerne and understonde.
Dominus:
Noʒt alle: for som may noʒt vor oþer maner bysynes, som vor elde, som vor defaute of wyt, som vor defaute of katel oþer of frendes to vynde ham to scole, and som vor oþere dyvers defautes and lettes.
Clerk:
You’re able to speak and read and understand Latin. So then it isn’t necessary to have an English translation.
Lord:
I deny this argument; for though I’m able to speak and read and understand Latin, there’s much Latin in these chronicle books that I can’t understand, and nor can you without studying and consultation and reading other books. Also, though it mightn’t be necessary for me, it is necessary for other people who understand no Latin.
Clerk:
People who understand no Latin may learn and understand.
Lord:
Not everyone: for some aren’t able to because of other sorts of activity, some because of old age, some for lack of intelligence, some for lack of funds or of relatives to provide for them to go to school, and some for other various defects and hindrances.
Commentary
This is a representation of conversational language, though of a rather formal sort, so that colloquial reductions such as ‘isn’t’ may be appropriate in a translation. However, the Clerk addresses the Lord with the deferential plural ʒe, while the Lord replies with þou (see 5.4.1). There is no way of conveying this distinction in a Modern English translation, with the result that a significant feature of social register is lost. Trevisa writes in a South Western dialect, with spellings such as þeus, ‘these’, vor, ‘for’, and the form ham for ‘them’.
nedeþ, ‘is necessary’, is used as an impersonal verb (5.6.8). The Lord discourses at length on the notion of necessity (ll. 59–69). In early use katel means ‘property, wealth’. Livestock was one form of property, and OED gives a detailed account of the social factors that resulted in the sense‐development to ‘cattle’. In this context frendes probably has the sense ‘relatives’ rather than ‘friends’, though either is certainly possible here. In ON frændi means ‘relative’, and this sense was borrowed in Middle English (MED frend 4). vynde is ‘provide for, support’. In this dialect initial <f> is often voiced to <v>. This sense of find, quite common in this period, is today restricted to the phrase ‘all found’, meaning ‘with everything provided’. See OED find, senses 7–18.
8.7 Translating Verse
The questions that Trevisa raises about a translation, what is its point and who is it for, are particularly pertinent when translating verse: should the translation be ‘in ryme oþer yn prose’? Here is a literal rendering of the first twelve lines of one of the most affecting religious lyrics, an address by the sinner to the infant Christ (text 14l). To modernize this as a sung lullaby, preserving its poetic form, would be a challenging task, but it would highlight how much is lost in the prose translation. Whereas Trevisa writes in a Western dialect, John of Grimestone’s lyrics are in the language of Norfolk, as described in the Headnote.
Lullay, lullay litel child, child, reste þe a þrowe.
Fro heyʒe hider art þu sent with us to wone lowe;
Pore an litel art þu mad, unkut an unknowe,
Pine an wo to suffren her for þing þat was þin owe.
Lullay, lullay litel child, sorwe mauth þu make, 5
Þu art sent into þis werd as tu were forsake.
Lullay, lullay litel grom, king of alle þingge.
Wan I þenke of þi methchef, me listet wol litel singge;
But caren I may for sorwe, ʒef love wer in myn herte,
For swiche peines as þu salt driʒen were nevere non so smerte. 10
Lullay, lullay litel child, wel mauth þu criʒe,
For þan þi bodi is bleyk an blak, sone after sal ben driʒe.
Lullay, lullay, little child; child rest yourself a while. From on high you are sent to live here below. You are created poor and little, unrecognized and unknown, to suffer pain and misery for the sake of what was your own. Lullay, lullay, little child, you may well weep; you have been sent into this world as if you have been abandoned.
Lullay, lullay, little lad, king of all things; when I think of your suffering I really have little wish to sing, but I might indeed be sorrowful if love was in my heart, because no pains were so sharp as those you will suffer. Lullay, lullay, little child, well may you cry, for when your body is pale and wan, a little later it will be shrivelled.
Commentary
The traditional form of the lullaby, with its sentimental focus on the helpless baby, is in poignant contrast to the grim knowledge of the sufferings this child will undergo, for the baby is Jesus, and the speaker is perhaps gazing at a Christmas crib and reflecting on its significance. As the baby born in a stable, Christ is unkut, ‘not known’; OED uncouth traces the sense development through to its modern sense. Christ will suffer ‘for the thing that was your own’, i.e. mankind, created by God. He is forsake, anticipating his cry at his crucifixion, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27.46).
In the second stanza the baby is a grom; the modern ‘groom’ is used in a narrower sense. In l. 9 wer is subjunctive in an if clause (5.6.6) where today the indicative would be more usual; in line 10 smerte means ‘painful’; OED smart adj. 10, records the modern sense ‘clever’ from the late sixteenth century, though we still use the verb smart in the sense ‘cause pain’. In the last line blak means ‘pale, pallid’; it is a classic false friend. Its origin is OE blāc; see MED blok. So in some dialects, as here, it has the same spelling as ‘black’ from OE blæc; see MED blak. Very confusing! The final detail, that Christ’s body is ‘dry’, is repeated in Julian of Norwich’s vision of the dead Christ as ‘dry and bloodless’.
8.8 Translating Pearl
Pearl, with its intricate metrical structure of linked twelve‐line rhyming stanzas with heavy alliteration, and its extraordinarily rich vocabulary, sets the greatest challenge to the translator, yet many have taken up that challenge with the aim of making the poem accessible to a modern audience. Some have tried to reproduce the metrical structure of the original; others have departed from it in various ways, but yet have attempted to transmit the movement and changing moods of the poem. The result is sometimes an effective and moving poem, but it is a new creation. And yet a literal translation, while transmitting the surface meaning of the text, lacks the formal structures that control the movement of the verse and the narrative. In these circumstances a commentary is particularly appropriate in order to draw attention to what is lost. Here is an example of a flat prose translation of Pearl 265–76 (text 10), followed by a commentary pointing to features not adequately conveyed by the translation: