Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer

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Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, Middle English, Poetry Month, Troilus and Criseyde

It is time to bring the April Poetry Month to a close, and I would never forgive myself if I featured long poetical works worth reading and did not give the spotlight to Chaucer. While most people have likely heard of The Canterbury Tales, and perhaps even read some of it (in a modern translation) before, it is likely most have not picked up anything else he wrote. And that is a shame, since his Troilus and Criseyde is arguably just as good as Canterbury, albeit in a very different manner.

Geoffrey Chaucer lived in the 14th century and was arguably the most influential author in early English literature. During a period when most poets were writing in French and Latin, Chaucer chose to write his works in English. He wrote in what is now known as Middle English, closer in relation to our Modern English than the works of the Beowulf poet and other works in Old English. Whereas a person could pick up an Old English text and be completely confused, a person can reasonably decipher the language of Middle English.

His work, Troilus and Criseyde, tells the story of Troilus and Criseyde during the Siege of Troy. Yes, the hero and heroine of this book are from Greek Mythology, which means some of the names, places, and events will be familiar. Many of the future retellings have drawn their inspiration from Chaucer’s version of this poem.

A brief spoiler-free preview of the poem’s story: The story is about the Trojan prince Troilus, son of Priamus who is king of Troy, who falls in love with a lady called Criseyde. With the help of his friend Pandarus, who is Criseyde’s uncle, Troilus wins Criseyde’s love. A time of love and prosperity follows, which ends when the Greeks capture the Trojan warrior Antenor. Criseyde and Antenor are exchanged hence Troilus and Criseyde are separated.

Here are the first 49 lines in Middle English (Full poem here):

 The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen,
That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,
In lovinge, how his aventures fellen
Fro wo to wele, and after out of Ioye,
My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.
Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte
Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryte!

To thee clepe I, thou goddesse of torment,
Thou cruel Furie, sorwing ever in peyne;
Help me, that am the sorwful instrument
That helpeth lovers, as I can, to pleyne!
For wel sit it, the sothe for to seyne,
A woful wight to han a drery fere,
And, to a sorwful tale, a sory chere.

For I, that god of Loves servaunts serve,
Ne dar to Love, for myn unlyklinesse,
Preyen for speed, al sholde I therfor sterve,
So fer am I fro his help in derknesse;
But nathelees, if this may doon gladnesse
To any lover, and his cause avayle,
Have he my thank, and myn be this travayle!

But ye loveres, that bathen in gladnesse,
If any drope of pitee in yow be,
Remembreth yow on passed hevinesse
That ye han felt, and on the adversitee
Of othere folk, and thenketh how that ye
Han felt that Love dorste yow displese;
Or ye han wonne hym with to greet an ese.

And preyeth for hem that ben in the cas
Of Troilus, as ye may after here,
That love hem bringe in hevene to solas,
And eek for me preyeth to god so dere,
That I have might to shewe, in som manere,
Swich peyne and wo as Loves folk endure,
In Troilus unsely aventure.

And biddeth eek for hem that been despeyred
In love, that never nil recovered be,
And eek for hem that falsly been apeyred
Thorugh wikked tonges, be it he or she;
Thus biddeth god, for his benignitee,
So graunte hem sone out of this world to pace,
That been despeyred out of Loves grace.

And biddeth eek for hem that been at ese,
That god hem graunte ay good perseveraunce,
And sende hem might hir ladies so to plese,
That it to Love be worship and plesaunce.
For so hope I my soule best avaunce,
To preye for hem that Loves servaunts be,
And wryte hir wo, and live in charitee.

And those same lines in Modern English (Full poem here):

Troilus’s double sorrow for to tell,
he that was son of Priam King of Troy,
and how, in loving, his adventures fell
from grief to good, and after out of joy,
my purpose is, before I make envoy.
Tisiphone, do you help me, so I might
pen these sad lines, that weep now as I write.

I call on you, goddess who does torment,
you cruel Fury, sorrowing ever in pain:
help me, who am the sorrowful instrument
who (as I can) help lovers to complain.
Since it is fitting, and truth I maintain,
for a dreary mate a woeful soul to grace,
and for a sorrowful tale a sorry face.

For I, who the God of Love’s servants serve,
not daring to Love, in my inadequateness,
pray for success, though death I might deserve,
so far am I from his help in darkness.
But nevertheless, if this should bring gladness
to any lover, and his cause avail,
Love take my thanks, and mine be the travail.

But you, lovers that bathe in gladness,
if any drop of pity is in you,
remember all your past heaviness
that you have felt, and how others knew
the same adversity: and think how, too,
you have felt Love dare to displease
if you have won him with too great an ease.

And pray for those that may have been
in Troilus’s trouble, as you’ll later hear,
that love bring them solace in heaven:
and also, for me, pray to God so dear
that I might have the power to make clear
such pain and woe as Love’s folk endure
in Troilus’s unhappiest adventure.

And also pray for those that have despaired
of love, and never can recover:
and also those by falsity impaired,
by wicked tongues, beloved one, or lover,
And so ask of God the benign mover,
to grant them soon to pass from this place,
that have despaired of Love’s grace.

And also pray for those that are at ease,
that God might grant them to persevere,
and send them power their lovers to please,
that it might, for Love, be worship and a pleasure.
For that I hope will be my soul’s best measure:
to pray for those who Love’s servants be,
and write their woes, and live in charity.

While the latter might be easier to read, you can see that the first set of lines in Middle English can be puzzled out. At least a good number of the words can be, although the spellings weren’t standardized on anything yet so they may look a little different. Curious about what Middle English sounded like? Here is a video of a reading from the Prologue in Chaucer’s Caterbury Tales:

And for an even more interesting experience, the Prologue being rapped in Middle English:

Have you read anything by Chaucer before? Ever tried reading it in Middle English? If you’ve read the Canterbury Tales, was there a tale that you remember enjoying from it?

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Tolkien on Translation

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Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, Medieval Literature, Middle English, Old English, Translation

Yesterday we celebrated the works of J.R.R. Tolkien with a Tolkien Reading Day, so it is only fitting that today, for Scholarly Saturday, the post concerns Tolkien. This turned out to be a coincidental scheduling, as I did not remember the Tolkien Reading Day until Thursday, but it was a fun day. I helped run a chat throughout the day on Twitter, and you can search through the #TolkienChat entries to see what we discussed and chime in with your own thoughts on the books, movies, soundtrack, and more.

There are many excellent works of literature out there to read, and understanding how translation affects your experience with a text is essential to getting the most out of anything that was written in a different language. Tolkien was a linguist and a Medievalist. He devoted himself to reading texts like Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, and many others. He formed a group known as Kolbitars (Coal biters) that would sit by a fire at night and read their own impromptu translations of Icelandic Sagas. He developed his own languages throughout his works, the most popular being the Quenya and Sindarin (both of them a form of Elvish) languages. He understood the importance of translation and wrote about it at some length.

In his essay, “On Translating Beowulf” (originally published as “Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of Beowulf“), Tolkien writes that, “No defence is usually offered for translating Beowulf. Yet the . . . publishing of a modern English rendering needs defence: especially the presentation of a translation into plain prose of what is in fact a poem, a work of skilled and close-wrought metre” (Tolkien, ix). In other words, the translator fails to defend their reasoning for providing this new and different translation of Beowulf to the world (when there are already many good translations to be had), and felt that those who translated the poem into prose especially needed to provide a strong defense for their decision. A poem loses something when it becomes a prosaic story, yet the ironic thing is Tolkien’s own translation of Beowulf was in prose form. Granted, he never anticipated this translation being published and, if he had, I imagine he would have either done a poetic translation or else offered a suitable defense for his decision to translate it into prose. For, as Tolkien himself stated regarding a prose translation of Beowulf, “The proper purpose of a prose translation is to provide an aid to study” (Tolkien, x) rather than one to read and study on its own. A prose translation was to function as a supplement to a poetic translation, or the text in its original form.

Tolkien also weighed in regarding the choice of using modern words or the words that would have been fitting for the time period of composition. Tolkien believed, “if you wish to translate, not re-write, Beowulf, your language must be literary and traditional: not because it is now a long while since the poem was made, or because it speaks of things that have since become ancient, but because the diction of Beowulf was poetical, archaic . . . in the day that the poem was made” (Tolkien, xvii). So he was firmly entrenched in the camp that believed using older terms, fitting for the time period, was the way to go rather than pandering to the modern crowd’s choice of vocabulary. This is something you can see not only in his translation work, but also seeping through all of his writing. Even children’s tales, such as Roverandom, use words that fit the story rather than ones that fit the audience. Yet while Tolkien was a proponent for a traditional translation, he also cautioned that “words should not be used merely because they are ‘old’ or obsolete. The words chosen . . . must be words that remain in literary use, especially in the use of verse, among educated people” (Tolkien, xix), which is why you won’t see thees and thous and other completely outdated stylistic language in his work.

This is only scratching the surface on Tolkien’s thoughts regarding translation. I highly recommend getting a copy of The Monsters and the Critics, which has his essay “On Translating Beowulf” in full along with six other worthwhile essays/lectures from Tolkien.

When it comes to translations, here is a list of the works he translated and had published:

Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Pearl
Sir Orfeo
Ancrene Wisse
The Old English ‘Exodus’
Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode

Works Cited

Tolkien, J.R.R. “Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of Beowulf.” In Beowulf and the 

          Finnesburg Fragment: A Translation into Modern English Prose. Tr. John R. Clark Hall.

Ed. C.I. Wrenn. London: Allen & Unwin, 1950: ix-xxvii. Print.