Old English & Middle English Verse

Modern English prose translation When the siege and the assault were ended at Troy,The city battered and burnt to brands and ashes,The man that the plots of treason there wroughtWas tried for his treachery, the veriest on earth.It was Aeneas the prince and his noble kin                     5Who then subdued provinces, and lords becameOf well nigh all the wealth in the western isles.Afterwards noble Romulus hastened to Rome,With great pride that city he founds first,And names it with his own name, as it now has;               10Tirius to Tuscany goes and establishes houses,Langaberde in Lombardy sets up homes,And far over the French flood Felix BrutusOn many banks full broad Britain he settles                  with joy;                                            15          Where war and distress and wonder          By turns has dwelt therein,          And often both bliss and blunder          Full rapidly has shifted since. And when this Britain had been founded by this noble lord, 20Bold men were bred therein, who loved warfare,In many a past time trouble that wrought.More wonders in this land have occurred here oftenThan in any other that I know, since that same time.But of all who here dwelt, of Britain’s kings,                  25Ever was Arthur the noblest, as I have heard tell.Therefore an adventure in the land I mean to show,That a marvel in sight some men hold it,And a prodigious adventure of Arthur’s wonders.If you will listen to this lay but a little while                    30I shall tell it at once, as I heard it in town,                  with tongue,          As it is fixed and set down          In story bold and strong,          With loyal letters locked,                                   35          In land as it has been long. 

Modern English Prose Translation (lines 1-18):When April with its sweet showersThe drought of March has pierced to the root,And bathed every vein in such liquidBy which virtue engendered is the flower,When the West Wind with its sweet breath   5Has inspired in every wood and heathThe tender shoots, and the young sunHas in the sign of the  Ram half its course run,And little birds make melody,That sleep al the night with open eye          10(So nature urges them in their hearts),Then long folk to go on pilgrimages,And palmers to seek strange shores,To distant shrines, known in sundry lands;And specially from every shires end           15Of England to Canterbury they go,The holy blissful martyr to seek,Who has helped them when they were sick. 

Dr. Robert Rice reads the Linguistic and Social Change, and the Unchanging Human Heart ( from Troilus & Criseyde, Book II, lines 22-28.)

Modern English Translation:                                   Pater Noster                    Our Father who art in heaven                        hallowed be thy name;                           thy kingdom come.          thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;                  give is this day our daily bread,                   and forgive us our trespasses                            as we forgive those                      who trespass against us,                   and lead is not into temptation                   but deliver us from evil. Amen.                                                                                                                                                     Ave Maria                       Hail, Mary, full of grace!                       The Lord is with thee.              Blessed art thou among women,      And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. 

Modern English Translation:Here King Ezelstan, lord of men,        ring-giver of warriors, and his brother also,Eadmund the Fzeling, everlasting gloryachieved in battle by the edges of swordsnear Brunanburh.  They cleaved the shield-wall,hewed the war-lindens with the leavings of hammers,the offspring of Eadward, as befitted their descentfrom noble ancestors, that they often in battleagainst each enemy should defend the land,treasure and homes.  The enemy perished,                      10Scots people and Vikingsfell doomed.  The field flowedwith the blood of warriors, since the sun rosein the morning time, the glorious starglided over the ground, God’s bright candle,the eternal Lord’s, until the noble creaturesank in setting.  There lay many a mangored by spears, a man of the northshot over the shield; just as the Scots also,weary, sated with war.  The West Saxons went forth          20the long day with picked troopson the tracks of the hated people,fiercely cutting down from behind those in flightwith file-sharpened swords.  The Mercians did not refusehard hand-play with any herowho with Olaf over the sea’s surgein a ship’s bosom sought land,doomed in battle.  Five young kings layon that battlefield,put to sleep by swords; likewise seven                          30jarls of Olaf, and countless numbers of the army,Vikings and Scots.  There was put to flightthe prince of the Northmen, compelled by necessityto the prow of his ship with little company;the ship pushed to sea, the king went outon the fallow flood: he saved his life.Likewise there all the old man in flight cameto his northern kin,  Costontinus,grey battle warrior; he had no cause to exultin the meeting of swords; he was stripped of kinsmen,       40deprived of friends on the battlefield,slain in strife; and he left his sonon the field of slaughter, destroyed by wounds,young at war.   He had no need to boast,the grey-haired warrior, in the clash of swords,the malicious old man, no more than did Olaf;with their remnant of warriors; they had no cause for laughterthat they had the better on the battle fieldin the clash of banners, the encounter of spears, the meeting of men, the exchange of blows                     50of those who on the field of slaughterwith Edward’s sons played.   Then departed the Northmen, the dreary survivors of spears,in nailed ships onto Dingesmereover deep water to seek Dublin, and again Ireland, ashamed in spirit.Likewise the brothers both together,king and atheling, sought their kinsmen,the land of West Saxons, exulting in war.They left behind them to enjoy corpses                          60               the dark-coated one, the black raven,the horn-beaked one and the dun-coated one,the eagle white from behind, to enjoy the carrion,the greedy war-hawk, and the grey beast,the wolf in the forest.  Never was there greater slaughteron this island ever yetof folk felled before thisby the sword’s edge, of which books tell us,by wise old men, since from the east hitherAngles and Saxons came up                                      70over the broad seas seeking Britain,proud war-smiths, they overcame the Welsh,noble warriors, eager for glory, conquered the land.

Modern English prose translation:                   Came on dark nightthe shadow-walker striding.  The bowmen slept,who were to hold the gabled hall,all but one.  It was l known to menthat the demonic foe might not, if the Lord dis not wish it,bring them under the shadows; but he wakeful, wrathful in indignation,awaited enraged the outcome of battle. Then came off the moor under misty hills                      710              Grendel going, he bore God’s anger;the evil ravager intended to ensnare someof mankind in that high hall.He waded under the clouds until he knewclearly the gold hall of men,  shining in gold.  That was not the first timethat he had sought Hrothgar’s house;never he in the days of his life before or sincedid he harder luck or hall-thanes find.Came then to the hall the warrior striding,                      720deprived of joys.  The door, firm with forged bands, immediately sprang open as he touched it with his hands;then hostile minded he ripped open, since he was enraged,the mouth of the hall.  Quickly thereafterthe fiend trod the patterned floor,went angrily; there stood out from his eyes,most like fire, an eerie light.He saw in the hall many a warrior,a sleeping band of kinsmen all together, a company of young warriors.  Then his spirit laughed;      730the dire adversary believed that, before dawn came,he would separate life from the bodyof each of them, for he was in expectationof a plentiful feast.  It was no longer his fatethat he might consume of mankind anymoreafter that night.  The mighty kinsman of Hygelacwatched how the criminal assailant under sudden attack would act. 

Dr. Robert Rice reads the prologue to Beowulf.

     Modern English prose translation                      Listen!  I intend to tell    the choicest of dreams                    which I dreamt     in the middle of the night                     while speech-bearers*     dwelt at rest.                          *A kening for ‘men’                       It seemed to me that I saw     a most wondrous tree                     born aloft in the air,     enveloped with light,                                     5                     the brightest of beams.     That beacon was completely                     stippled with gold;     gems stoodfair at the corners of the earth,     five of which there wereup on the crossbeam.    Beheld it there all the angels of the Lord,fair from their creation.    Nor indeed was that a criminal’s gallows.                           10                     But there beheld it      holy spirits,                     men over the earth,      and all this glorious creation.                       Wondrous was that victory-beam,    and I was stained with sins,                     deeply wounded with wrongdoings.     I saw the Tree of Glory,                     worthily adorned,     beautifully shining,                                          15                     garnished with gold;      jewels had covered worthily the tree of the forest.                      Nevertheless, through that gold     I was able to perceive                  the ancient strife of wretches,     when it first beganto bleed on the right side.  I was struck completely through with sorrows.                     20Fearful I was before that fair vision.     I saw that bright beaconchange clothing and colors.    Awhile it was with wetness drenched,soaked with the flow of blood,    awhile with treasure bedecked.                  Yet I lying there     a long while                  beheld in penitent sorrow     the Savior’s tree,                                    25                  until I heard     that it uttered speech.                  Began then to speak words    the most blest of woods.                      “It was years ago,    (I remember it yet),                  that I was hewn down       at the forest’s edge,removed from my trunk.     There mighty enemies seized me,                                   30made me there into a spectacle,     ordered me to bear their criminals.        Men bore me then on their shoulders,     until they set me on a hill;fastened me there enemies enow.      Then I saw the Lord of mankind                  hasten with great zeal    when that He would ascend me.                  There I dared not then    against the Lord’s word                                35                  bow or break,    when I saw trembling                  the surface of the earth.    I might all                  the foes have felled,    nevertheless I stood fast. 

Modern English Translation:Now must we praise    the kingdom of heaven’s Guardian,                  Measurer’s might    and His mind’s thought,                  the work of the Glory-Father,    as of each of wonders, He,  3                  the eternal Lord,    established the beginning.                  He created first    for the sons of men                                                                                                                                        heaven as a roof,    the holy Shaper.                             6                  Then middle-earth    mankind’s Guardian,                  the eternal Lord,    afterwards furnished                  the land for men,    Prince all-powerful.                         9                                                                       

Modern English Translation:                     The Sign of the Cross                    In the name of the Father                           and of the Son                      and of the Holy Spirit                                                                                Amen.                         The Lord’s Prayer                Our Father, who art in heaven,                      hallowed be thy name.                        Thy kingdom come.                    thy will be done on earth                          as it is in heaven.             Give us this day our daily bread,                and forgive us our trespasses   as we forgive those who trespass against us.            And lead us not into temptation,                        but deliver us from evil.                                       Amen.                         The Hail Mary                   Hail Mary, full of grace,                     the Lord is with thee.           Blessed art thou among women,    and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.                  Holy Mary, Mother of God,                          pray for us sinners,               now and at the hour of our death.                                 Amen.                                           The Gloria Patri                      Glory be to the Father and to the Son                  and to the Holy Spirit       as it was in the beginning, is now,                    and ever shall be,                    world without end.  Amen.

A brief introduction to readings of Old English and Middle English by Dr. Robert Rice.