The Dream of the Rood - now considerably longer!

[dillingworth]

I did a translation of this a while back, but I'm now trying to render it in blank verse for a competition. Any feedback on this opening section would be much appreciated (the whole thing will be about 80 lines long). It's from the Old English poem "The Dream of the Rood".

Behold! I now shall tell the best of dreams,
Which met me in the middle of the night
As prophets dwelt in silent beds of rest.
It seemed I saw a tree beyond belief,
Lifted aloft, enwrapped in beams of light,
Of beams the brightest. All of that beacon
Was saturate with gold; every corner
Of earth stood fair with gems, and there were five
Up high upon the place where shoulders meet.
The angels of the Lord beheld it all,
Made dazzling by decree — that gallows-tree
Was not for felons. Souls of holy men,
Those bound in bodies, the created world
All looked with awe upon the cross of Christ.

That victory-tree was fearful: full of faults,
Wounded with wickedness, I saw the tree
Of God with robes enrobed, shining with joys,
All dressed in gold; the tree of the Lord
Was worthily covered with gems. And yet,
Beyond the gold, I saw the ancient pain
And torment suffered long by wretched men.
And from the right the cross began to bleed:
Sickened with sorrow, blighted with beauty,
I saw that eager beacon altering,
Changing robes and hue: now it was bloody,
Flowing with gore, now it was beautiful.
Troubled in spirit, prostrate, full of grief,
A long while I beheld the Saviour's tree
Until I heard it speak. Of all the trees
The noblest spole to me and thus it said.

"It was years ago - I remember it still -
That they cut me down from the forest's edge
And wrenched me from my roots. Strong enemies
Laid hold of me and made me an example,
Commanding me to lift their felons up.
Men bore me there and set me on a hill:
Made fast by many enemies I saw
The saviour of mankind hasten, gallant
In humility, to climb upon me.
Earth trembled but, in awe of his command,
I dared not bow my branches, break my back.
I might have laid all of the felons low
But I stood steadfast. Strong and stern, that man
Disrobed as God Almighty, ascending
Those high gallows, brave before so many,
To ransom all mankind. Under his embrace
I trembled unbending, stiffly stood fast.

As a rood I was raised; I raised up Christ,
The King of Heaven; still I dared not bow.
With nails of dark affliction they attacked me -
You still can see those open wounds of wickedness.
They besmeared us both, dripping with the blood
That flowed from his side as he breathed his last.
And on that deadly hill I suffered cruel
Fated happenings, saw the Lord of Hosts
Brutally racked; for clouds of darkness cloaked
The corpse of Christ, but still it shone, as dark
Beneath the sky a shadow crept. Then wept
The whole of God's creation for the fall
Of their great king, as Christ lay on the cross.

But from afar those eager servants came:
I saw it all. Afflicted though I was with grief,
I bowed before them, bold in my meekness.
They bore the Lord away from his great agony
And left me standing damp with spattered blood,
With arrows sorely wounded. Exhausted
Of limb they laid him out, keeping head-watch
Over the corpse of heaven's resting king,
Wearied by his struggle. Carved in bright stone
They worked his tomb in front of his slayer -
The Lord of Victories lay in darkness there.
Then they began to sing him a lament,
A sorry song of twilight-wretchedness:
Turning from their prince they left him lying
In stony silence, meagre company.

[Still to be continued...]

[Arcadian]

some advice David,

As I have entered many competitions in the past with mixed results -- it has been fun and I like competitions ( you build yourself up after having honed a poem you think that will get you over the line: the actual process of editing, compacting, condensing and making it transparent to a reader is a challenge but a very valuable skill that is developed! )

competitions are a different type of "animal" to posting on forums or submitting poems for University class assignments.

Ask the following questions before you submit, it may help narrow the odds ( the richer the prize money - the greater the number of entries -- so what do you do to make your work stand out from the pack ???

The points below may seem formulaic but hey ! it is a competitive world and any edge or insight may be of help.


1. do you know the market you are operating in ? - is your poem the kind that judges will deem acceptable ? -- perhaps theme is too controversial or not
acceptable

2. have you seen past winning entries - any stylistic or thematic pattern there ???

3. do you know the judges - have they writtem poem themselves -- what is their manner and style or predilictions ?

4. Competitions are of a subjective nature: how do judges choose a winning entry amongst several hundreds ? - at the end of the day decision must be subjective


good luck

Arco

[kozmikdave]

Gidday Dill

This took a while to get my attention. But the wait was worth it. It is quite olde worlde and hymn-like and although it finishes with the crusifixion, it almost seems like a Christmas theme in the middle.

I didn't quite get

All of that beacon
Was saturate with gold; every corner
Of earth stood fair with gems, and there were five
Up high upon the place where shoulders meet.

Thought you might be referring to our Southern Cross , but I doubt it. Five what? (just thick I guess!)

I shall have another read of it later and see if the angel of enlightenment visits me. I did enjoy the read though. Thanks.

Cheers
Dave

[dillingworth]

thanks for that. the "five" is five gems - in the anglo saxon mind (the poem's a translation but only a small part - it will be much larger) five gems often appeared on crosses to represent the five wounds of christ.

arco - thanks for those tips. the competition is being run by the university and it's a prize for a poem on a religious subject with the theme "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" - i'll try and find out who's judging but knowing oxford this will be difficult to discover because, as with most things, the processes behind something like this are willfully obscure.

[barrie]

i'll try and find out who's judging but knowing oxford this will be difficult to discover because, as with most things, the processes behind something like this are willfully obscure.

MI5?

Good luck, by the way.

[David]

Dill, this is just my widow's mite, but does "saturate" stand out as too Latin (it did for me) in an Anglo Saxon thing? (Can't do that funny O.E. symbol for "th".)

And do you still do Old English as part of the English course there?

Good luck.

David

[barrie]

David's made a good point about saturate - How about using bedecked instead?

Barrie

[dillingworth]

the verb in question is begeotan, literally drenched, covered with liquid; but "bedecked" fits nicely with other verbs in the poem, e.g. "leohte bewunden" on the previous line [lit. enveloped in light]. It's a tricky one, one of the many problems of translating i'm starting to discover...

[dillingworth]

bump: any comments on the new section?

[Dreamburo]

I say this from the point of view of a dictionary-sniffer, a mere dabbler in OE:

On the first reading I loved 'saturate' because it Shakespearified it - it was a very successful use of unexpected cadence - and wasn't too obsessively Anglo-Saxon. I thought 'bedecked' was trying too hard. But then I wondered if you could make a policy decision to become even more verbal and stick only to spoken modern English, how would that sound?

I know Seamus Heaney does this in Beowulf, and it may seem obvious because done before, but I wonder if he doesn't have very good reasons for doing so. (I particularly like his use of remembered dialect, turns of speech from childhood like So! for Hwaet!)

In that spirit, how about:

'wrapped up in light' for leohte bewunden, or even 'wound up in light(s)'

awesome for syllic (nice little irony about overuse of the word in our debased metropolitan argot)

stuffed with sin? how about pollution as another word with backwards-and-forwards resonances?

Decked out is a possibility to lessen the number of robe-words

changing colour, clothes? for changing robes and hue? Hue is such an OE concept.

'Naked now, as God Almighty'?

'I stood and shook but did not bend'?

TYPO: the noblest SPOKE to me (I hope!)

I suppose it boils down to where your politics are when it comes to language: should we try to be beautiful even if we hark back to a bygone age, or should we strike forward into the unknown with just the utilitarian tools we have? And does it have the right length for meter or the right sound, or alliterate nicely? Should we alliterate at all? We can't help it, as that question shows.

More questions than answers, I suspect. I admire you for taking this on.

Luisetta

[David]

I must say I like Luisetta's idea of jazzing up the whole thing in the modern vernacular. (Or did I understand that wrong?) A bit like Christopher Logue's War Music? Or am I way out?

So far as the thing itself is concerned, as it is now ...

I love the start - great opening line. Could come straight out of the Arabian Nights (which is probably not the effect you're after at all - or is it?)

There's something about "silent beds of rest" that just doesn't sound right to me. I have no reasoning to support that comment at all.

I find I don't mind "saturate" now, in context, but - assuming you're not going to rewrite the whole thing without the OE sound, which I'm sure you're not - I'd like to object to "gallant" on the same grounds (French, not Latin) that I did for "saturate".

Then they began to sing him a lament - I think this line limps a bit.

I really like:

The angels of the Lord beheld it all,
Made dazzling by decree — that gallows-tree
Was not for felons. Souls of holy men,
Those bound in bodies, the created world
All looked with awe upon the cross of Christ.

And not just that. I must say, having read the whole thing (so far), apart from the occasional infelicities (and of course I don't know a better OE word for infelicities), I found it very moving. It has power, and it's becoming an organic thing. It's really good, and I look forward to reading more. I may just read it again, purely for pleasure.

David

[kozmikdave]

Epic bit of writing (with more to come!).

You're making us work hard here. Not a bad thing. My only critical comment is for the use of "Commanding..." and "... command" in the third stanza. The second stood out like dog's balls to me so soon after the first, but it might be the best translation.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but I'm enjoying the read.

Cheers
Dave

[dillingworth]

thanks for all those comments - very helpful. i'll try and incorporate some of those excellent suggestions when i do a final draft, which of course i'll post up here.

[dedalus]

As through a glass darkly, the Anglo-Saxon world starts to make sense ... no mean accomplishment! There is a pulse of urgency that runs through this poem.

[ccvulture]

David

Not knowing the original, I don't know what the metrics look like, but your translation seems largely in blank verse - if this is the plan, then there are several "off" lines, which seem more like errors than deliberate divergences.

All dressed in gold; the tree of the Lord - Conceivably 5-stress if you start on the "All" but then it's not a pentameter.

Was worthily covered with gems. And yet, - 4 stresses

You still can see those open wounds of wickedness - 6 stresses

Might be worth looking at, though of course you may be intentionally varying it (in which case, given that there is so much variance, why not dispense with the blank verse structure in the first place and let your creativity reign?)

One point - is "enwrapped" really a word? It sounds like an attempt to sound olde worlde but not like a real olde worlde word - if you catch my drift?

Finally, I think I agree with Dreamburo on the stylistic side. I feel a translator should work in the modern idioms of their own time, otherwise how does one bring old classics meaningfully to life for future (or foreign) generations? It's a myth that using a self-declared "traditional style" will make a piece of writing somehow.. timeless. If anything it makes it sound unnaturally dated. (I'm not accusing you of doing this by the way, just agreeing with Dreamburo's assertion.)

Good effort though.

Stu