Ic þis gid be þē āwraec
It is about thee . . . that I have told this tale,
adding in a note, ‘(In this passage) the living poet steps forward out of his Hrothgar, and turns his eyes to the prince for whom he made it up’ (p. 168). Now this is nothing more than an attempt on the part of the translator to wring from the Old English lines some scrap of proof for the peculiar theory that he holds of the origin of the poem.
Similarly, he often reads into a single word more than it can possibly bear. At line 371 he translates—
Hrothgar, helm Scyldinga,
Hrothgar, crown of Scyldings.
But ‘crown’ is an impossible rendering of ‘helm,’ which is here used figuratively to denote the idea of protection[8], rather than the idea of the crowning glory of kingship. Further, in the same passage, 375–6, heard eafora (bold son), is wrenched into meaning ‘grown-up son.’ These are but two examples of what is common throughout the translation.
Diction.
The archaic style used by Professor Earle cannot be regarded as highly felicitous, since it mixes the diction of various ages. Here are Old English archaisms like ‘Leeds’ and ‘burnie’; here are expressions like ‘escheat,’ ‘page’ (attendant), ‘emprize,’ ‘bombard’ (drinking-vessel), ‘chivalry.’ Here are such specialized words as ‘harpoon,’ ‘belligerent,’ ‘pocket-money,’ and combinations like ‘battailous grip’; while throughout the entire translation are scattered modern colloquialisms like ‘boss’ (master), ‘tussle,’ ‘war-tug.’
The reason for these anomalies is evident—the translator wishes to imitate the remoteness of the original style. The style is certainly remote—at times almost as remote from the language of to-day as is the style of Beowulf itself.