"What! Have we not heard of the glory..."

Kyung Hee University

Of the High Middle Ages

(Image from The Korea Times)

The big hand on the clock has just touched the hour mark, the little hand tells me that the hour is three, and the profound, outer darkness reminds me that this hour is late.

The great MEMESAK international conference has now been over for nine hours, although we participants -- having spent two days "fighting dragons and crossing swords" -- retired to the mead hall and, until only a couple of hours ago, jubilantly celebrated our victory over the forces of darkness that "from the moor under the misty slopes came."

What! Have ye not heard of the glory
Of we Medieval scholars, warriors of golden days --
How we wrought works of valor?

Sorry. I'm waxing Medieval. My excuse? This. I had the privilege of hearing passages from a new Beowulf translation, which opens with these lines:

What! Have we not heard of the glory
Of the Spear-Danes' kings in olden days --
How the princes performed deeds of valor?
Not a few times Scyld Scefing seized
The seats of banquet from many a tribe,
Mighty opponents, and terrified the earls.
Since the time when he was found a deserted infant,
He grew up in tender care, soared to the sky,
And prospered with unparalleled honor, till
All neighboring nations over the sea came
To obey and pay tribute to him: a good king he was!

These words flowed from the lips of Professor Sung-Il Lee, of Yonsei University, who has translated the entirety of that Old English epic. Over a cup of mead (or perhaps soju), I asked him how he had managed to outdo Seamus Heaney's translation:

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by,
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.
There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes,
a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes.
This terror of the hall-troops had come far.
A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on
as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.

So much for Mr. Heaney. In case you're wondering, the original Anglo-Saxon lines ran as follows:

Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum
þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon·
hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scéfing sceaþena þréatum
monegum maégþum meodosetla oftéah·
egsode Eorle syððan aérest wearð
féasceaft funden hé þæs frófre gebád·
wéox under wolcnum· weorðmyndum þáh
oð þæt him aéghwylc þára ymbsittendra
ofer hronráde hýran scolde,
gomban gyldan· þæt wæs gód cyning.

I've borrowed this original text from Benjamin Slade's great website Beowulf in Steorarume.

But you're still wondering how Professor Lee managed to render the Old English into excellent, modern lines of epic poetry that -- in my opinion -- far outdo Heaney's version. Over that cup of aforementioned sojumead, Lee explained that he had used the old dictionaries and critical texts of bygone scholars to ensure that he had clearly understood the original verse, and once he had done that for a few lines, he had "let the text possess" him and had proceeded to translate it. He had spent four-and-one-half months working from early morning till late at night without a break last fall and winter in this endeavor, and when he finished the last line at three in the morning in late February 2007, he opened for himself a bottle of soju, drank it all down, and literally "howled at the moon!"

That sounded a bit more like Grendel than Beowulf, but I toasted Professor Lee's admirable achievement, and he promised me a copy of the published text.

As for my own light-hearted presentation, which I had titled "Finding Myself Lost in Translation," people seemed to enjoy it, for they laughed a lot. I took that as a good sign, though they may simply have been laughing at me.

I should add -- last but not at all least -- that I finally met Mr. Gord Sellar, a man to whom I've been indebted ever since he came to my rescue online one fine day last year when an anonymous troll was plaguing these blog entries. Gord called the troll a "twit" and thereby helped rid Gypsy Scholar of an unwanted, gryndelig presence.

Gord can perhaps confirm whether the preposition "with" or "at" best describes how people were laughing during my presentation. Either way, thanks to Gord for his moral support during the conference and his immoral support during the postconference drinking...

The Art of Success: My Brilliant Career!

New Day Publishers

"a not-for-profit publishing house"

(Image from New Day Publishers)

Today and tomorrow, I'm busy attending an international Medieval conference on "The Issues of Translation in Medieval and Renaissance Studies" that's being held -- conveniently for my purposes -- on the Kyung Hee University campus.

The conference is taking place under the auspices of the Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea (MEMESAK), an organization to which I belong, and around 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, I'm giving a presentation titled "Finding Myself Lost in Translation," which puns in various ways too tedious to detail here.

I guess that you'll just have to be there.

Anyway, since I'm busy preparing for that, I'm going to be derelict in my blogging duties and keep my post mercifully short this weekend. Thus . . . an announcement.

A book that my wife and I translated from the original Korean version has recently been published, and just this week, we received our gratis copies. Some disclaimers, though. We're not involved in the publishing and receive no royalties or kickback or anything other than for our initial work as translators (and even then only from the KLTI). Also, I'm 'slightly' exaggerating to call myself a translator. Sun-Ae actually translates. I merely rework her hard efforts into a style that sounds more natural to English. Also, this particular book was not literature, which is what we ordinarily work in, but one of those self-help books for people hoping to rise to the heights of stardom as a CEO (Chief Executive Officer).

The book is titled Art of Success: Learning through Great Conquerers from Julius Caesar to Genghis Khan (ISBN 971-10-1170-3), by Kim Hoo, and its basic theme is that the great conquerors reached the heights that they did through a combination of charm and ruthlessness that the would-be CEO can emulate. Deception and betrayal are necessary to success. Typical advice:

Be free of all criteria of values. People tend to behave according to the standard of values they have, such as those rooted in a religion or faith. But the successful show themselves much more flexible than the common people in this regard. They are not bound to standards of values but, rather, know how to use them as freely as they like. (page 93)

In short, get ahead any way that you can. My wife and I considered taking Mr. Hoo's advice to heart, stealing his book, publishing it as our own, and perhaps making our fortune. Unfortunately, we let our values be our guide and remained honest but poor.

Perhaps Mr. Hoo will also remain poor, but in case any of my readers wants to help him line his pockets with silver and gold, his book can be purchased from New Day Publishers, a publishing company in the Philippines that, oddly enough, claims to be "a not-for-profit publishing house that aims to strengthen the life and witness of the church through the publication and distribution of books that are culturally relevant and people-empowering."

The book is reviewed on Inquirer.net by a certain Mr. Dante M. Velasco, specialist in "public relations," and in his review, "Choice of conquest: Territories or self?", he seems of two minds about the book:

Here comes a book that delivers a formula for success or conquest, with stories that steer clear of myths behind well-known conquerors in antiquity -- and with annotations that extract meaning from such stories. And yet this book must be read with a clear "PG Warning."

This is an unusual book on how to succeed because, at first glance, the stories come across as prescriptions of using such not-so-desirable behavioral patterns as betrayal, trickery, cruelty, hypocrisy, crocodile tears, cowardice, hatred, insincere love, unabashed use of religion and ideology, expansionism, and terrorism.

Velasco takes some cold comfort in the book's honesty:

Thankfully, the author has a warning in his preface: "For a long time, historians avoided the evil conduct committed by conquerors to make them seem greater than life and deserving respect. But actually, they also betrayed, fled during battle, treated love like a business deal, and sacrificed close friends without hesitation for specific aims."

Velasco, however, remains doubtful about the morality of the lessons to be learned.

As for me, I learned that, once again, as with almost every publication on which my full name appears, my middle name is misspelled as "Jeffrey."

Sigh...