Article Series - Chaucerizing

1. Scalzi Chaucer’d (Listen!)
2. Lake Chaucer’d (Listen!)
3. Seuss Chaucer’d (Listen!)
4. Kowal Chaucer’d (Listen!)
5. Kowal Beowulf’d and Chaucer’d: Shades of Milk and Honey

I recently had the chance to hang out for a few days with the incomparable Mary Robinette Kowal, recent (and well-deserved) winner of a Hugo award for one of her excellent short stories. Mary is, if you don’t know, the author of the novel Shades of Milk and Honey, whose pages are wrought of the strangely combustible mix of Regency manners and milieu with magic.

Shades of Milk and Honey

Anyway, at one point Mary and I were talking about voicing and language patterns, and I told her (not for the first time) that I loved how she’d worked so hard to maintain the “Austen voice.” She thanked me, smiled, then mentioned that more than one reader has complained about how she wrote “Old English.”

We found this no end of amusing. Jane Austen, you see, wrote in the early 19th-century, and people stopped writing Old English around the 12th. The reader’s accusation was thus twice-wrong: (1) I think Mary does an excellent job within the linguistic constraints she set upon herself; and (2) Austen-speak is some 6 or 7 centuries away from Old English. Austen doesn’t sound a whit like Old English. For that matter, Austen doesn’t even sound like Middle English, which predates her by only a few centuries.

To illustrate, let’s look at a couple lines from Mary’s novel and see what they might look like in previous dialects. (I’m working fast here, but I’ll try to explain some of what I’m seeing and doing in the translations … and hope I don’t make an egregious error in my haste!)

As our example, I’m going to pull from page 47 of the novel, in which a young lady named Melody talks to Jane, her elder and more sensible sister (and the protagonist of the novel), about a certain fellow they’d recently met.

Kowal Original

“Captain Livingston! If there is a more handsome, graceful man, I know not where to find him. He is all that is courtesy. And wit! La!”

To be sure, that doesn’t sound like the sort of linguistic gibberish you’ll hear at the mall nowadays. Without a doubt, it sounds “old.” But is it Old English?

A Viking Ship for Ambiance

Kowal in Old English

“Leofwinestun helm! Gif an guma mare lufigendlic ond hold is, ic nyta hwær hine metan. Se is eall ðæt hoflic be. Ond gleawmod! La!”

Rolls off the tongue, eh?

There were some difficulties in translating Mary’s “old” English into Old English. One was the fact that my Anglo-Saxon (another word for the language) is pretty raw in terms of “translation-into”: this is a dead language, and I’m accustomed to “translating-out-of,” if you see what I mean.

Another difficulty is the vocabulary. Mary’s book, in proper Regency fashion, is much concerned with a lot of mannered business that the Anglo-Saxons didn’t bother to make words about — a fact that probably tells us something significant, in turn, about the two cultures. The exact words Mary has chosen are often of French origin, entering into our language in the wake of the Norman Conquest and the shift in sense and sensibilities that accompanied it (see what I did there?).

One of our first issues is with the word captain. The word goes back at least as far as the Greeks (kapetanios), but it came into English via Old French around the 14th century. In Greek, the word means “the one at the head,” which I’ve factored into my choice of the Old English word helm in translation. To an Anglo-Saxon the word helm carried a variety of meanings that build out of the general senses of “protection” and “at the top”: thus it could specifically mean “summit,” “the top of trees,” and “helmet” (a sense still in use today). It could also, in certain contexts, mean “lord,” which strikes me as a good approximation of the rank of “captain.” Put it all together and that’s probably about as close to a translation as one can manage.

Livingston, Scotland

Moving on, I have to say I stumbled for a bit over the word handsome. The word appears to have originated in the 15th century, where it means something like “easy to work with the hands.” From there it gets a sense of “seemliness,” which eventually mixes with notions of propriety to convey “proper beauty.” Only very recently has it begun to serve as a mark of gender (that is, men are “handsome”; women are “beautiful”). Regardless, it was hard for me to think of an Anglo-Saxon word that might possibly convey the sense of morally proper beauty that Melody is using here. I’ve opted for the Old English lufigendlic, meaning “beautiful,” though I suspect that an Anglo-Saxon helm would be a bit perplexed at the description. Still, I could see the character Melody talking about such a man this way.

The word courtesy was a bit of an issue, too. It’s a clear loan from Old French (first attested in the 13th century), and it also reeks of the Anglo-Norman court in a way that would turn the stomach of an Anglo-Saxon. In lieu of anything more fitting coming to mind, I’ve gone with hoflic here. The word means “pertaining to the hof” in Old English, where hof has meanings that range from a mere dwelling to a hall, court, or even sanctuary. My feeling, then, is that it might be a good proximity to the word courtly, which has a hint of the contextualized propriety embedded in courtesy.

Then there’s wit. Here the problem is that while the word does actually exist in Old English, the nuance isn’t quite the same. When Melody talks of Captain Livingston having “wit,” she means both a kind of intellectual superiority and an agility, a certain cleverness at the verbal joust. That meaning really isn’t current until the 16th century. In Old English, wit simply meant “conscious knowledge,” and it was more apt to be used as a verb (witan). I’ve opted, therefore, to use instead the word gleawmod, which indicates sagacious wisdom. I’m not terribly pleased with it, though, as I don’t think it quite conveys the sense of verbal interplay that Melody is describing. Perhaps something better will occur to me eventually.

Last but not least, there’s Melody’s interjection “La!” I’ve frowned over this quite a bit, as I’m not really seeing a Saxon maid saying “La!” On the other hand, I’m well aware that I have no reason to think that such a girl would not do so: I’m making a biased assumption of speech patterns based upon the flimsy backing of my personal imagining of a culture that largely disappeared almost 1000 years ago. Despite my frowning, then, I’ve left it alone.

So Mary’s Regency-speak isn’t Old English. Not even close. For that matter, it isn’t even Middle English.

Kowal in Middle English

“Capteyn Livingston! If ther is a mor handsom man, that is so ful of grace, I ne knowe not wher him to fynde. He is ful of courtesie. And wit! La!”

It’s closer, to be sure, but I hope you can see (and hear, if you dare read it aloud) some key differences between this passage as Chaucer would have written it (in Middle English) and the way Jane Austen would have written it (which is pretty much exactly how Mary has written it).

I hope all this gives readers not only a sense of the tremendously interesting development of our language, but also a sense of how much work went into Shades of Milk and Honey. Mary jumped through a lot of linguistic hoops in order to produce an accurate impression of Regency-speak, and best of all she managed to do it without calling attention to the effort.

And that effortless achievement, not to put too fine a point on it, is the kind of thing that wins a person Hugo awards.

Now, anybody want to check my translations? Got any better suggestions for wit in Old English?

Article Series - Chaucerizing

1. Scalzi Chaucer’d (Listen!)
2. Lake Chaucer’d (Listen!)
3. Seuss Chaucer’d (Listen!)
4. Kowal Chaucer’d (Listen!)
5. Kowal Beowulf’d and Chaucer’d: Shades of Milk and Honey

It’s no secret that among my favorite people on the planet is Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s been ripping up the proverbial charts of the speculative fiction industry of late, with awards (little ol’ thing called the Campbell) and book deals and generally exquisite swellness. She was even recently nominated for a Hugo (!), for her excellent short story “Evil Robot Monkey.”

I offered to Chaucerize something of Mary’s, and she left it up to me to determine what it would be. I naturally chose her Hugo-nodded tale of a monkey and its potter’s wheel.  So here, on the occasion of her moving into a new domicile, is a loosely Chaucer’d snippet from “Evil Robot Monkey,” which I suggest you read in full (in Modern English, naturally) just as soon as you finish up here:

Mary Robinette Kowal, “Yvele Metal Ape”

Cover Art by Mary Robinette Kowal

In the corner of his vision, the door to his room snicked open. Sly let the wheel spin to a halt, crumpling the latest vase.

In the corner of his visioun, the chamber dore openyde.  Sly letteth the axeltre turn to an ende, foldynge the latteste vesselle. (Mary’s vocabulary is strikingly old; that is to say, she uses fewer post-medieval words than most of us do.  That said, “spin” as a verb in the 14th century really only applied to spinning wool, “crumpling” is 16th-century word, and “vase” didn’t make it into our language until the 17th.)

Vern poked his head through. He signed, “You okay?”

Vern pouked his heed thourh.  “Thu art wele?” he shewede.

Sly shook his head emphatically and pointed at the window.

Sly shoke his heed pleynedly ond poynted at the glas.

“Sorry.” Vern’s hands danced. “We should have warned you that they were coming.”

“Soory.”  Vernes hondes daunsed.  “Of that comynge oughte we to have y-tolde thee.”

“You should have told them that I was not an animal.”

“Oughtestow to telle hem that Y am nat a beest.”

Vern looked down in submission. “I did. They’re kids.”

Vern lokyd doun servyse-lyche.  “Y dede.  They were yonge.”

“And I’m a chimp. I know.” Sly buried his fingers in the clay to silence his thoughts.

“Ond Y am ape.  Y knowe.”  Sly beried his fyngres in cley to queynte his mynde.

“It was Delilah. She thought you wouldn’t mind because the other chimps didn’t.”

“It was Delilah.  She thoghte thu nouldst care by cause the othir apen dide nat.” (Alas, “chimpanzee” appears in English in the 18th century, borrowed from the native tongue of Angola.)

Sly scowled and yanked his hands free. “I’m not like the other chimps.” He pointed to the implant in his head. “Maybe Delilah should have one of these. Seems like she needs help thinking.”

Sly skoulede and pulled his hondes fre.  “Y am nat of oon kynde with othir apen.”  He poynted to the chip in his heed.  “Delilah ought to have oon of thise.  Hit semys she nedys help to thenche.” (The word “implant” ain’t in Middle English.)

“I’m sorry.” Vern knelt in front of Sly, closer than anyone else would come when he wasn’t sedated. It would be so easy to reach out and snap his neck. “It was a lousy thing to do.”

“Y am soory.”  Vern kneled bifore Sly, clossere than otheres would come whan he nas nat slepynge.  Hit wolde be to symple to reche and breke his necke.  “Hit was a lowsy thyng to do.” (Sedation isn’t something Chaucer would really be familiar with, so I opted with a generic idea of sleep.)

Sly pushed the clay around on the wheel. Vern was better than the others. He seemed to understand the hellish limbo where Sly lived–too smart to be with other chimps, but too much of an animal to be with humans. Vern was the one who had brought Sly the potter’s wheel which, by the Earth and Trees, Sly loved. Sly looked up and raised his eyebrows. “So what did they think of my show?”

Sly posshed the cley aboute the quele.  Vern was betere than the otheres.  He semed to onderstonde the hellysshe lymbo where Sly leved: to skilfulle to be with othir apen, bot to beestliche to be with men.  Vern was the oon who had y-broughte Sly the potteres quele that, by the molde and tres, Sly y-lovyd.  Sly lokyd up and raysed his browes.  “What dide they thenche of min pleye?”

Vern covered his mouth, masking his smile. The man had manners. “The teacher was upset about the ‘evil robot monkey.’”

Vern coveryd his mouth, hidyng his lippes.  The man had maneres.  “The techer was dis-esed of the ‘yvele metal ape.’” (A lot of mind-wringing about what to do with “robot.”  Clearly the word isn’t in Chaucer’s dialect in the slightest.  I substituted “metal” here, but I’m just not pleased with it: Sly isn’t actually a robot, I don’t think.  He’s not mechanical.  I just couldn’t come up with something better — though I probably will about 10 minutes after I post this.)

Sly threw his head back and hooted. Served her right.

Sly threwe his heed bak and laugheth.  Hit was the ryghte ordre of thinges. (The verb “to hoot” carried wholly negative connotations until the 20th century, so I dumbed the text back to laughter.  As for the more expansive second sentence, the line is largely quoted from Chaucer’s translation of Boethius; it seemed so fitting that I couldn’t help but use it.)

Evil Monkey

[Edited to add cover art from Mary herself; thanks, Mary!]

Alas, it is only the big gulp of air before the next plunge.

This week, you see, is my annual “Shako Week,” wherein I seem to spend every last waking moment preparing the campus literary magazine for printing. As usual, things are taking longer and longer as we try to get things done — though our publication date (naturally) never changes. The past week or so has been spent trying to get students tracked down and straightened out and working in a timely manner, which sounds simple enough but can feel frightfully akin to herding cats:

We have almost all the raw material collected now. So all I have to do is put it together into a magnificent publication. By Friday.

In the meantime, I’ve been having lots of papers to grade. Finally got my desk cleared today — just in time for a round of papers from my Honors Tolkien class, which are filling my inbox at this very moment (they’re due at midnight; six minutes, people!).

My Third-year Review materials were, until yesterday, an ongoing item on my agenda, too. Got that turned in. Hopefully they’ll keep me around another year. I won’t know for some weeks.

Had a small “fire” to deal with for the Secular Commentary Series involving the abbreviating of Latin titles. Extinguished, but it took a few hours. That was a couple days ago. I think. The days are blurring.

Because I lacked things to keep me busy, I had two out-of-nowhere requests for translations today. The first was from a cadet, who for reasons unknown to me wants to inscribe on his class ring a Latin translation of the first part of the old Jesuit saying “O God, give me the boy and I will give you the man.” Strikes me as a bit on the pedophilian side without the whole, but I’m supposing he’s thinking more about testosterone. Very well: “O Deus, donate me puerum.”

The next translation request was a favor for Mary Robinette Kowal, who has done me enough favors that I couldn’t possibly deny her volunteering me to answer Delia Sherman’s call for someone to translate a spot of Old French (“Ja non! Sire, c’est offence! Mien braz est vostre, et ja ne guerpirai.”) into Middle English. I had a few minutes during the end of my office hour this morning — the 5-10 minutes I ought to have been cracking open Othello for class — and so wrote Mary:

It’s important to keep in mind that “Middle English” covers about 500 years of rapidly shifting language, and that at any given time it is incredibly inconsistent across England (folks spoke and wrote in sometimes radically different ways from one town to another). I’m suspecting, based on the French provided, that we’re talking late 13th century, courtly dialect. So I turned to a London dialect, circa Chaucer. If that’s incorrect, I need to know. Otherwise:

I nevere! Lord, it is blaspheme! Myn armes ben thyne, and I nyl nat straye.

I had some question about translating “arm” — is it meant to be the body part or the armament? I’m not sure the French can handle the double entendre as well as the English, but I thought it might be well to include it if possible; thus, the plural “arms” in my translation. Also, the verb “stray,” as used here, highlights the importance of time. It is adopted into English from Anglo-Norman during Chaucer’s lifetime, and so it would have been a sort of courtly “buzzword” during the timeperiod I’m imagining.

I’m now bummed that I mistyped “late 13th century” for the French; I meant “late 14th century.” Damnit.

Naturally, lots of students from my three classes have been wanting to meet with me for one consultation or another. I suspect that this is because they noticed I was very, very busy.

How busy? I was nonstop yesterday, working to the last minute possible before driving across the peninsula and the river to an afternoon medical check-up (still breathing!), only to turn around, drive back, run into the house, grab two slices of pizza, smile at the Wife and Hobbit (“Daddy home!”), then rush out (“Bye, Daddy!”) and sprint to my office with pizza in hand, eating as I ran. I got back around 11, I think. It’s been a blur.

Ditto today, only with the added fun of teaching, a nagging stiff neck (with accompanying headache), and, as luck would have it, getting a surprise visit from a faculty teaching evaluator. Actually, I mean that last bit literally. It was lucky. While I was unprepared for her presence, I happened to be teaching the start of Othello, which I daresay I can do pretty darn well on a moment’s notice. So I think it went well.

Still, I was distracted.

First, I was distracted by the fact that the Wife is very ill. Her months-long lingering on-and-off cold finally ‘ploded (ex- or im-, you’re choice) yesterday. She’s miserable, and now I’m stressed about leaving her alone so much with the Hobbit — who, as luck would have it (sarcastic this time), is an extra handful since we chose this week as the week to start potty-training.

Second, I was distracted by the fact that I knew that this evening I would be engaged in the formal activities of The Citadel Honor Court. I’ve written before about how torn up I get about Honor Violations. It’s terrible for me, and I have no doubt it’s far worse for the students who stand accused. Most of the time, if cadets know they’re guilty, they just resign — quit school, in other words, before they can get kicked out — but some cadets, either because they’re innocent or because they simply are hoping beyond hope, go through the full extent of a trial, which is a dreadful experience.

Tonight, from 5:30 until I was dismissed around 9:00, was my third time in the Court. It’s too close to me now to explain the experience other than to say that something about it shakes me to my core, and to confess that this long, rambling post was surely a vain attempt to distance myself from it.

I have doubts about sleep as the clocks round to midnight.

Article Series - Chaucerizing

1. Scalzi Chaucer’d (Listen!)
2. Lake Chaucer’d (Listen!)
3. Seuss Chaucer’d (Listen!)
4. Kowal Chaucer’d (Listen!)
5. Kowal Beowulf’d and Chaucer’d: Shades of Milk and Honey

A long time without much Chaucerin’. Blame is shared, no doubt, by the time-crunch of the semester and the mental wipe-out that followed the completion of The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament.

A few spare minutes at this turn of the year, however, have put me in the mood for dusting off my free Dell microphone. Perhaps it’s the spiked eggnog, or maybe it’s the glazed-eyed hangover of holiday travels, but what I’ve decided to read for y’all is a terrific little book I’ve been absorbed in of late, a true classic that a fellow could read (at the incessant prompting of an 18-month old) over and over and over again until he just starts reading it in odd voices so as not to go completely bug-!@#$ crazy. I present to you, therefore,

The Leche Seuss, Grene Eyren and Hamme:

As ever, the tapestry-esque cover art is courtesy of the amazingly talented Mary Robinette Kowal.

Unlike previous renditions of my Chaucerin’, I’m not quoting the original text here since, well, any decent human being should have it memorized already. Plus, I didn’t change much as I read it other than doing a quick substitution for “train.”

Oh, I should also note that I’m well aware of my wandering pronunciation on this one. Trying to do voices in Middle English — and fighting the urge not to laugh about it — completely destroyed any semblance of control that I had on some of the proper sounds. “Ich,” for instance, which is the form of the first person pronoun I used for the Sam-I-Am-Not character, ought not to be pronounced the same way it’s spelled in Modern English. Oh well. ‘Tis all for fun anyway.

Still, extra credit goes to those who can note other errors.

Happy New Year.