... Ossium annulos fregit; telum per omnem penetravit moribundam
carnem. Illa in pavimentum corruit. Ensis erat cruentus, militare
opus perfectum. Effulgebat lumen, lux intus stetit, non aliter
quàm cum a cœlo lucidus splendet ætheris lampas. Ille per ædes
gradiebatur, incessit juxta muros ensem tenens fortiter a capulo
Higelaci minister irâ ac constantiâ (_sc._ Iratus et constans
animi).
Pages 113, 114.
_Criticism of the Translations._
The English version is scarcely more than a paraphrase, as may easily be
seen by comparing it with the literal translation into Latin. But even
as a paraphrase it is unsatisfactory. By way of general criticism it may
be said that, while it attains a kind of dignity, it is not the dignity
of _Beowulf_, for it is self-conscious. Like _Beowulf_ it is elaborate,
but it is the elaboration of art rather than of feeling. Moreover, it is
freighted with Miltonic phrase, and constantly suggests the Miltonic
movement. The trick of verse in line 3 is quite too exquisite for
_Beowulf_. The whole piece has a straining after pomp and majesty that
is utterly foreign to the simple, often baldly simple, ideas and phrases
of the original. Nearly every adjective is supplied by the translator:
in Old English the ‘sword’ is ‘bloody,’ in Conybeare the ‘gallant sword
drops fast a gory dew’; the cave becomes a mansion; the ‘floor’ is
‘dust’--dust in an ocean cave!--‘heaven’s candle’ becomes ‘heaven’s
glorious torch.’ The poem is tricked out almost beyond recognition.
Beowulf assumes the ‘grand manner,’ and paces ‘the Grendel’s hold’ like
one of the strutting emperors of Dryden’s elaborate drama.
[Footnote 1: See Editor’s Prefatory Notice, p. (iii).]
[Footnote 2: See Prefatory Notice, p. (v), footnote.]
[Footnote 3: See supra, pp. 14 f.] [[Turner: Third Edition]]
[Footnote 4: p. 23. Grundtvig is once mentioned in the notes,
but the reference is from the editor, not the author.]
[Footnote 5: p. 29.]
[Footnote 6: Conybeare did not translate the episode of the
swimming-match.]