ge swylce sēo here-pād, sīo æt hilde gebād
ofer borda gebræc bite īrena,
brosnað æfter beorne; ne mæg byrnan hring 2260
æfter wīg-fruman wīde fēran
hæleðum be healfe.
The passage is certainly obscure, and the readings are not all
undoubted, but the words can never be tortured into meaning what Lumsden
tries to make them mean.
But it would be manifestly unfair to judge a translation addressed to
the general reader merely by scholarly tests. The work must make its
appeal as a literary rendering.
The propriety of adopting a ballad measure may be questioned. Probably
no measure could be found more unlike the Old English lines. Moreover,
by reason of its long association with purely popular poetry, it
constantly suggests the commonplace and the trivial. But above all, it
is reminiscent of a medievalism wholly different from that of _Beowulf_.
The saving grace of the ballad measure is its readableness. It is rather
effective in passages not too dignified, calling for action. But in
passages of elevation the line is found wanting:--
They mourned their king and chanted dirge,
and much of him they said;
His worthiness they praised,
and judged his deeds with tender dread.
But, like Wackerbarth’s, Lumsden’s translation had the advantage of
being readable.
[Footnote 1: Col. Lumsden’s translation of the Battle of Maldon,
_Macmillan’s Magazine_, 55: 371, has been generally admired.]
[Footnote 2: See supra, p. 45.] [[Wackerbarth]]
[Footnote 3: See supra, p. 56.] [[Grein’s Texts]]
[Footnote 4: See supra, p. 72.] [[Arnold: Criticism...]]
[Footnote 5: See _American Journal of Philology_, ii. p. 355.]
[Footnote 6: From the second edition.]