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.
[1.] Col. Lumsden’s translation of the Battle of Maldon, Macmillan’s Magazine, 55: 371, has been generally admired.