וידבר בירחטנוט - Byrhtnoth Spoke

[richardf8]

It is late at night
I encountered a CD of Jess Bessinger reading OE Poetry.
And now I find myself translating Byrhtnoth's speech from the Battle of Maldon from Old English in very literary Modern Hebrew.

Comments

[deckardcanine]

Wow, I didn't even realize we had any pre-Norman Conquest English poetry besides Beowulf.

And once again, I find that OE names make me think of someone eating raw meat.

[richardf8]

We actually have a fair amount of it.
There's Beowulf, of course; Some elegies including the Wife's Lament, The Wanderer, and the Seafarer; some verse renderings of the Book of Genesis through the binding of Isaac. Some battle poetry - that Battle of Brunanburgh and the Battle of Maldon. The Dream of the Rood which is a verse recounting of the Crucifixion that puts Jesus into the role of warrior. There are riddles - the inspiration for the "Riddles in the Dark" scene in the Hobbit, and there's also a fair amount of prose literature, including Aelfric's paraphrase of Genesis (and his Preface in which he expresses his objection to translating the Vulgate), a Millenialist sermon by Wulfstan delivered shortly before the year 1000, and a whole bunch of other goodies.

[level_head]

I am amused to read this, and reminded of my vary first (and very pleasant) interaction with RichardF8 some two-thirds of a decade ago, when we were going back and forth on the meaning of a translation of a poem by Chaucer.

I remembered the interaction:
http://makovette.livejournal.com/164446.html

But I had forgotten that I apparently originally inspired Mako's post.

In any event, I agree with you on the carnivorous sound of many Old English names, and I stopped by here to wish our host a happy birthday (coming up this weekend).

RichardF8, please consider it wished. And as someone might have said to the Marquis de Lafayette: "Many happy returns."

===|==============/ Level Head

[albiziaman]

OE to MH? How did that situation arise? Or maybe even more of a general question, how often does that come up as a translation combination?

[richardf8]

Rarely, I'd guess. I did it on a lark, because I thought it would sound cool in Hebrew.