The plan of joining with his own the name of his principal 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 Magnússon 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.
Nature of the Translation.
The translation of Beowulf is written in extremely archaic language. An imitative measure of four principal stresses is used. Wherever possible, the Old English syntax has been preserved (see line 1242); the word-order of the original is retained. The archaic language is wrought of several different kinds of words. In the first place, there is the ‘legitimate archaism,’ such as ‘mickle,’ ‘burg,’ ‘bairn’; there are forms which are more closely associated with the translation of Old English, such as ‘middle-garth,’ ‘ring-stem.’ There are modern words used with the old signification, such as ‘kindly’ (in the sense ‘of the same kind’), ‘won war’ (in the sense ‘wage war’), ‘fret’ (in the sense ‘eat’). Finally, there are forms which are literally translated from Old English: ‘the sight seen once only’ from ansȳn, face, 251; ‘spearman’ from garsecg, ocean (see extract), ‘gift-scat’ from gif-sceatt, gift of money, 378; ‘the Maker’s own making’ from metod-sceaft, doom, 1180. Romance words are excluded whenever possible. A glossary of ‘some words not commonly used now’ is included in the book, but none of the words cited above, save ‘burg,’ is found in it.