Part 19 (2/2)

[Footnote 3: See supra, p. 63.] [[Heyne]]

[Footnote 4: See supra, p. 56.] [[Grein's Texts]]

[Footnote 5: See p. 79.] [[Lumsden]]

[Footnote 6: See p. 45.] [[Wackerbarth]]

MORRIS AND WYATT'S TRANSLATION

Colophon: Here endeth the story of Beowulf done out of the old English tongue by William Morris and A. J. Wyatt, and printed by said William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, Uppermall, Hammersmith, in the county of Middles.e.x, and finished on the tenth day of January, 1895. Large 4to, pp. vi, 119.

Troy type. Edition limited to 300 copies on paper and eight on vellum.

Second edition. The Tale of Beowulf, Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats, translated by William Morris and A. J. Wyatt. London and New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1895. 8vo, pp. x, 191.

Ninth English Translation. Imitative Measures.

_Differences between the First and Second Editions._

In the second edition a t.i.tle-page is added. The running commentary, printed in rubric on the margin of the first edition, is omitted.

_Text Used._

The translation is, in general, conformed to Wyatt's text of 1894, departing from it in only a few unimportant details.

_Part Taken in the Work by Morris and Wyatt respectively._

The matter is fortunately made perfectly clear in Mackail's _Life of William Morris_, vol. ii. p. 284:--

'(Morris) was not an Anglo-Saxon scholar, and to help him in following the original, he used the aid of a prose translation made for him by Mr. A. J. Wyatt, of Christ's College, Cambridge, with whom he had also read through the original. The plan of their joint labours had been settled in the autumn of 1892. Mr. Wyatt began to supply Morris with his prose paraphrase in February, 1893, and he at once began to ”rhyme up,” as he said, ”very eager to be at it, finding it the most delightful work.” He was working at it all through the year, and used to read it to Burne-Jones regularly on Sunday mornings in summer.'

The plan of joining with his own the name of his princ.i.p.al teacher was one which Morris had used before when translating from a foreign tongue.

He published his rendering of the _Volsunga Saga_ as the work of 'Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris.' There is no evidence that Mr. Wyatt had any hand in forming the final draft of the translation. In defending it, Morris took all the responsibility for the book upon himself, and he always spoke of it as his own work. In writing to a German student toward the end of his life Morris spoke of the translation as his own without mentioning Mr. Wyatt[1]. Nor has Mr. Wyatt shown a disposition to claim a share in the work. In the preface to his edition of the text of _Beowulf_ (Cambridge, 1894), he says:--

'Mr. William Morris has taken the text of this edition as the basis of his modern metrical rendering of the lay.' --Page xiii.

Finally, it may be added that the specimens of Mr. Wyatt's translation printed in the glossary and notes of his book bear no resemblance to the work of Morris.

_Morris's Theory of Translation._

None despised the merely literal rendering of an epic poem more than William Morris. In writing of his version of the _Odyssey_ to Ellis, Morris said: 'My translation is a real one so far, not a mere periphrase of the original as _all_ the others are.' In translating an ancient poem, he tried to reproduce the simplicity and remoteness of phrase which he found in his original. He believed it possible, e.g., to suggest the archaic flavor of Homer by adopting a diction that bore the same relation to modern English that the language of Homer bore to that of the age of Pericles. The archaism of the English would represent the archaism of the Greek. This method he used in rendering Vergil and Homer.

But when he approached the translation of _Beowulf_, he was confronted by a new problem. It was evident that fifteenth-century English was ill-adapted to convey any just notion of eighth-century English.

_Beowulf_ required a diction older than that of Sir Thomas Malory or Chaucer. Hence it became necessary to discard the theory altogether, or else to produce another style which should in some true sense be imitative of _Beowulf_. This latter Morris tried to accomplish by increasing the archaism of his style by every means in his power. This feature is discussed in the following section.

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