The Nibelungenlied
Translated by Alice Horton.
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Editor’s Preface
The following addition to the existing translations of the Nibelungenlied originated in the desire to place before English readers a rendering which should be at once literal and metrical. Of five which have appeared during the past fifty years not one quite accomplishes this object. Three only are in verse. The first, by Jonathan Birch, which appeared in 1848, was rendered in iambics of seven feet, from the short and to some extent hypothetical text of Lachmann. The second, by W. N. Lettsom, is a spirited performance, but it takes many liberties with the language and fails to preserve the antique flavour of the work. The third, by Mr. A. G. Foster-Barham, which appeared only ten years ago, is much more satisfactory in this respect, and errs chiefly in retaining too great a roughness of rhythm, which makes it displeasing to the modern ear. Of the two prose translations, the first, entitled Echoes from Mistland (Chicago, 1877), by Mr. Auber Forestier, is rather a paraphrase than a literal rendering, though it adheres closely to the matter of the original; and the second, by Miss Armour, which has only lately appeared, seems in all respects a praiseworthy production, lacking only a metrical form to make it a fair equivalent of the great German epic.
The additional difficulties involved in any verse-translation are so great, that a translator may well be excused from facing them. Assuming the indispensable qualification of sympathy needful in the translation of any work of art from one medium to another, the differences in word-formation, in inflection, and in grammatical construction between any two languages interpose mechanical obstacles which are inconsistent with the preservation of metrical similarity; a more or less close approximation is all that can be looked for. Still more are the difficulties increased when the task involves the presentation to a modern reader of a work which belongs to a distant and nebulous past, deals with a primitive and imperfect phase of human culture, and teems with motives which, if not eradicated from human nature, are no longer regarded as legitimate and are often repugnant to modern ideas. In these circumstances it might be thought that a prose rendering would have the best or only chance of doing justice to the original. But, on the other hand, it may be urged that a prose translation of a rhymed poem can never be an adequate equivalent, especially in a work like the Nibelungenlied, where it must be obvious to any student that its construction in rhyme and strophe have played an important part in determining its style and character. Rhyme and rhythm are essential features of it; and the modern reader (as distinguished from the student) requires, no less than the medieval listener, the stimulus which they supply. To give for 9,000 lines
