Well, this is odd. Somehow this article just showed up today in my feed. I thought "yay", more middle english poetry, and started working on a translation, then noticed the date, and decided to continue anyway.
So a couple of questions:
In stanza V, the first line, what does "had" mean?
And in stanza VI, "love" feels like the wrong word. "Caritas" is Christian love, and the whole poem is about sensual sin, so I'm thinking this is better translated as the vice lust?
All the arrow and combat imagery is quite apt with what I've been reading in the Aeneid and now the Illiad. My first thought was that the Archer was Phoebus Apollo, since that is how he normally rendered in my translation of the Illiad. But here, it's probably a reference to Eros/Cupid? Anyway, I'm just leaving it as Archer.
So far, I'm not changing many words, other than to spell the words in modern English.
Well, this is odd. Somehow this article just showed up today in my feed. I thought "yay", more middle english poetry, and started working on a translation, then noticed the date, and decided to continue anyway.
So a couple of questions:
In stanza V, the first line, what does "had" mean?
And in stanza VI, "love" feels like the wrong word. "Caritas" is Christian love, and the whole poem is about sensual sin, so I'm thinking this is better translated as the vice lust?
All the arrow and combat imagery is quite apt with what I've been reading in the Aeneid and now the Illiad. My first thought was that the Archer was Phoebus Apollo, since that is how he normally rendered in my translation of the Illiad. But here, it's probably a reference to Eros/Cupid? Anyway, I'm just leaving it as Archer.
So far, I'm not changing many words, other than to spell the words in modern English.
“Had” means I made a typo - it's “hap,” now corrected.
I think you're right about love in the sixth stanza. Caritas works as a Latin translation.
What an excellent comment, about which I shall ponder more. Thank you.
So here is my translation. I would love your comments before I make it an actual post.
I
The signs of shame that stain my blushing face,
Rise from the feeling of my raving fits,
Whose joy annoy, whose payment is disgrace, [guerdon]
Whose solace flies, whose sorrow never flits:
Bad see I sowed, worse fruit is now my gain,
Soon-dying mirth begat long-living pain.
II
Now pleasure ebbs, and payback starts to flow; [revenge begins to flow]
One day now wreaks the wrath that many wrought; [doth wreck]
Remorse does teach my guilty thoughts to know
How cheap I sold what Christ so dearly bought: [that]
Now conscience rues the faults so long in play: [Faultes long enfelt doth conscience now bewraye]
Which cares must cure and tears must wash away.
III
The holy shots that Grace threw at my heart
Like stubborn rock I forced all to recoil;
To other weapons made myself a mark,
So I, by wounds, once welcome, have been foiled.
Woe worth the bow, woe worth the Archer’s might,
That drew such arrows to the mark so right!
IV
To pull them out, to leave them in is death,
One to this world, one to the world to come;
Wounds may I wear, and draw a doubtful breath,
But then my wounds will work a dreadful sum; [doom=fate]
And for a world whose pleasures pass away,
Would lose a world whose joys are past decay. [I loost]
V
O sense! O soul! O mirth! O hoped for bliss! [hap]
You woe, you wean; you draw, you drive me back;
Like meeting with the cross their combat, this, [Yow crosse encountring, like their combate is]
That never ends but with some deadly wreck; [wrack]
When sense is winning, soul has lost the field,
And future hopes to present mirth must yield. [happ]
VI
O heaven, lament! Sense robs thee thus of saints,
Lament, O souls! Sense plunders you of grace; [spoyleth]
Yet scarcely sense deserves these hard complaints,
Lust is the thief, sense but the entry place;
Yet grant I must, sense is not free from sin,
For thief he is that thief admits within. [admitteth in]
Hey, that's fab.