Dichtungen der Angelsachsen, stabreimend übersetzt von C. W. M. Grein.
Erster Band. Göttingen: Georg H. Wigand, 1857. 8vo, Beowulf, pp.
223-308. Zweite (Titel-) Auflage, 1863.
Beowulf. Stabreimend übersetzt von Professor Dr. C. W. M. Grein. Zweite
Auflage. Kassel: Georg H. Wigand, 1883. 8vo, pp. 90.
Second German Translation. Imitative Measures.
_Grein’s Preparation for Scholarly Work._
Christian Wilhelm Michael Grein[1] (1825-77) was eminently well fitted
for the editing and translating of Old English poetry. He possessed a
natural aptitude for the study of Germanic Philology, and had the
advantage of studying with an excellent professor, Franz Eduard
Christoph Dietrich (1810-83), in the University at Marburg. As early as
1854 he began his labors as a translator of Old English poetry with a
version of the _Phoenix_, ‘Der Vogel Phoenix: ein angelsächsisches
Gedicht, stabreimend übersetzt,’ Rinteln, 1854. In the same year he
printed a translation of the _Heliand_.
In 1855 he assumed the position of Praktikant at the Kassel
Landesbibliothek. Here he was able to devote a large part of his
attention to the study of Old English, acquiring a familiarity with the
poetry of that tongue which it has seldom been the fortune of a scholar
to surpass. He formed the design of editing and translating the entire
body of Old English poetry and appending to it a complete glossary which
should not only give the meanings of the words, but instance every
occurrence of the word. This design he carried out between the years
1857 and 1864.
_Grein’s Texts._
The text of _Beowulf_ is found in Grein’s _Bibliothek der
angelsächsichen Poesie_, Erster Band, Göttingen, 1857, where it occupies
pp. 255-341. A second edition, several times re-edited, is _Beovulf,
nebst den Fragmenten Finnsburg und Waldere_, Kassel und Göttingen, 1867.
Grein never saw the MS. of the poem[2]. He based his text on a collation
of all the preceding editions. This was unfortunate, because, had Grein
seen the MS., he would doubtless have hastened to make a correct
transcription of it. As it was, his edition necessarily shares some of
the faults of its predecessors, since the text had never yet been
accurately transcribed. A simple illustration of this defect may be seen
by examining line 2218 of the text, where Grein reads,
_be fire, fyrena hyrde_,
following Thorpe[3]. As has been pointed out, this is an impossible
reading, and one for which there is no justification in the MS. Thorpe,
however, had presented it as the MS. reading, and Grein could not but
copy it.
Like Kemble, Grein had a supreme respect for the readings of the MS.,
and he announced his intention of following this reading wherever
possible:--
‘Bei der Behandlung des Textes galt als erste Pflicht,
handschriftliche Lesarten, wo es nur immer möglich war, zu retten
und namentlich auch manche angezweifelte, den Lexicis fremde
Wörter als wolbegründet nachzuweisen: nur da, wo Verderbniss auf
der Hand liegt, habe ich mir mit der grössten Vorsicht Aenderungen
erlaubt oder bereits von Andern vorgeschlagene Aenderungen
aufgenommen, wobei ich mich möglichst eng an das handschriftlich
gebotene anzuschliessen suchte.’ --Vorwort, iv. (_Bibl._).
This was wise. Since the days of Kemble, emendation had become
unnecessarily frequent. We have seen in what a light-hearted way Thorpe
spoke of the ‘blunders of the scribes,’ and how careless he was in the
preparation of his text. The dialect had not yet received proper
attention, and the copyists were blamed for errors that they never made.
Grein was extremely clever in filling the lacunae of the MS., and his
conjectural emendations are frequently retained by later editors.
Still another improvement which he introduced was the full punctuation
of the text; this was superior to any that had preceded it. In previous
editions defective punctuation had obscured the sense of the lines; here
it was made a factor in their interpretation.
_Theory of Translation._
Grein’s theory of translation is sufficiently expressed in the Vorrede
to the _Dichtungen_:--
‘Die Sammlung von metrischen Uebersetzungen angelsächsischer
Dichtungen, deren erster Band hiermit der Oeffentlichkeit
übergeben wird, soll einen doppelten Zweck erfüllen. Einerseits
betrachte ich dieselben als eine wesentliche Ergänzung, gleichsam
als fortlaufenden Commentar zu meiner gleichzeitig in demselben
Verlag erscheinenden Textausgabe der angelsächsischen Dichter,
indem sie meine Interpretation der Originaltexte, worin ich oft
von meinen Vorgängern abweiche, einfach vor Augen legen.
Andrerseits aber bezweckte ich dadurch die Bekanntschaft mit den
in vieler Beziehung so herrlichen dichterischen Erzeugnissen des
uns engverwandten englischen Volkes aus der Zeit vor dem
gewaltsamen Eindringen des romanischen Elements durch die
normannische Eroberung auch in weiteren Kreisen anzubahnen, was
sie sowol nach ihrem Inhalte als auch nach der poetischen
Behandlung des Stoffes gewiss in hohem Grade verdienen. Daher war
ich eifrigst bemüht, die Uebersetzung dem Original in möglichster
Treue nach Inhalt, Ausdruck und Form eng anzuschliessen:
namentlich suchte ich, soweit es immer bei dem heutigen Stande
unserer Sprache thunlich war, auch den Rhythmus des Originals
nachzubilden, wobei es vor allem auf die Beibehaltung der
eigentümlichen Stellung der Stabreime ankam, ein Punkt, der bei
der Uebertragung alter Alliterationspoesien nur zu oft
vernachlässigt wird.’ --Vorrede, iii.
_Differences between the two Editions._
The second edition of the translation (see supra, p. 65) was edited from
Grein’s ‘Handexemplar’ of the _Dichtungen_ after his death by Professor
Wülker, who has also re-edited the text of the _Bibliothek_. The
differences are seldom more than verbal, and are largely in the early
parts of the poem. The second edition is, of course, superior.