Knight's Tale Translation
Lines: 2399 - 2420
Lines: 2399 - 2420
Original I moot with strengthe wynne hire in the place, And wel I woot, withouten help or grace Of thee ne may my strengthe noght availle. Thanne help me, lord, tomorwe in my bataille, For thilke fyr that whilom brente thee, As wel as thilke fyr now brenneth me, And do that I tomorwe have victorie. Myn be the travaille, and thyn be the glorie! Thy sovereyn temple wol I moost honouren Of any place, and alwey moost labouren In thy plesaunce and in they craftes stronge, And in thy temple I wol my baner honge And alle the armes of my compaignye And everemo, unto that day I dye, Eterne fir I wol bifore thee fynde. And eek to this avow I wol me bynde: My beerd, myn heer, that hongeth long adoun, That nevere yet ne felte offensioun Of rasour nor of shere, I wol thee yive, And ben thy trewe servant whil I lyve. Now, lord, have routhe upon my sorwes soore; Yif me [victorie]; I aske thee namoore.” | Translation I will with strength win her in this place, But I know well, without your help or grace My strength on its own won’t prevail. With your help, my lord, tomorrow I will not fail, For the same fighting fire that burns in you, Burns now bright within me too. Begin tomorrow’s tale With my triumphant trials, then of your glory they’ll Sing! In your sovereign temple I solely have faith And so I labor as your servant blade In your craft and in your name. My Lord, in your temple my banner will fly, And be hung with all my army’s emblems And henceforth, till fickle fate condemns Me to die, the eternal fire I will before you find. Let this oath – to me – bind, I vow: on my beard and hair that hang so long That never yet have suffered the wrong From razor or shear, for you I’ll give Alongside my pious service so long as I live I ask you, my lord, have pity on my pain Bring the sweet victory I so hungrily wish to obtain.” |
Explanation
The prayers that Palamon, Emily, and Arcite gave in Chaucer’s, The Knight’s Tale, speaks to each individual’s thoughts, their character, and their motives. In Arcite’s, he prays to the god of war, Mars, to lend him strength so that he may be able to defeat Palamon and win over Emily. My translation of the end of Arcite’s prayer is superior to the translation done by Ecker and Crook because it focuses on creating a more dynamic rhythm through the use of a variety of poetic devices such as alliteration, enjambment, assonance, and punctuation.
Though rhythm is the primary concern for my translation, there were several auxiliary considerations made to achieve this effect while making the best effort to stay true to the original text. Firstly, maintaining Chaucer’s couplet rhyme scheme was paramount and this form served as a constant between my interpretation and the original. The secondary consideration was to preserve the original meaning and definitions Chaucer intended, however, this would need to follow the path that the translation’s rhyme and rhythm suggested. In beginning the translation at lines 2401-2406, in Ecker and Crook’s translation, they decided to omit the unique extended rhyme of Arcite’s plea.
Chaucer ties together Arcite’s need for Mars’s strength with the end rhymes ‘availle, bataille, thee, me, victorie, and glorie’ across six lines. This helps drive the reader through these lines leading up to the final rhyme when it ends with the couplet victorie and glorie, the latter punctuated with an exclamation point. I decided to tie the first and last two couplets of the six lines in a similar manner. By rhyming ‘prevail, fail, tale, and they’ll’ together, this translation accomplishes a similar pacing to Chaucer’s across these lines. The gap created by the you and too is accounted for rhythmically by the use of different alliteration within and across each line beginning and ending right after one another.
A similar effect is seen in line 2402 of the original where Chaucer uses the assonance of the o in ‘lord, tomorrow, whilom, now, and do’ to lead up to the end rhymes of victorie and glorie. I tried to replicate this effect by first using the assonance of the o in “my lord, tomorrow, I will not” and then transitioning that assonance into an alliteration of f in “fail,/ For the same fighting fire,” which is followed by “burns in you,/ Burns now bright within me, too. Begin tomorrow’s tale.” As the b alliteration ends it is picked up by the t, which is finished with the s in “Sing! In your sovereign temple I solely.” This moment where the extended rhyme found in these six lines ends is punctuated with the exclamation point and carries into the next part of the prayer. Instead of finding the exclamation point at the end of the line, it is given more emphasis by beginning its own new line through the use of enjambment. This presents the content Chaucer wanted to convey in a different way by highlighting further an important transition in the poem.
Additionally, the alliteration in these lines also helps to highlight the important idea in these lines about the ‘fighting fire’ of Mars now burning within Arcite. Ecker and Crook do not treat the idea of fire in these lines with a similar importance as they subdue Arcite’s line connecting his burning fighting desire to Mars’s as an aside in parenthesis. Their translation fails to convey an inspiring image despite the fantastic material in fire that they are presented with. I attempted to heighten this connection not only through alliteration, but also by shortening lines 2404-05 to provide this moment with a unique treatment both visually and poetically in the translation.
In Arcite’s next thought, Chaucer has him delve into more religious diction through the use of words like ‘temple, avow, and trewe servant.’ I wanted to draw a stronger connection between Arcite and the religious aspect of the prayer by using words such as faith, servant blade, fate, and pious. This seems to change the space Arcite is praying in by alluding to similar modern religious spaces like churches and grand cathedrals with the specific word choice. By drawing this connection, it presents a contrast in imagery in how one might imagine a temple to Mars to look – whether a shrine to war is much different from one to Diana or Venus visually. A sacred temple of war may simply differ in what it stands for. This connection leads up to Arcite’s oath, the conclusion to his prayer.
The translation of Arcite’s oath is kept very similar between the original, Ecker and Crook’s, and mine, but my translation attempts to give it another layer of complexity through punctuation. Chaucer calls attention to the oath by using a colon only after the word bynde in the entire prayer. I wanted to further this use of punctuation as a signifier of this moment by not only using the colon to signify the beginning of the oath, but also to visually bind Arcite to it. To do so I used two dashes in, “Let this oath – to me – bind,” to create the effect. Not only does Arcite say that this oath will be binding, the reader can get a sense of the gravity of this vow through the words too. This move helps to keep the dynamic variety of devices consistent throughout each of Arcite’s thoughts in the prayer. Starting with rhyming, assonance, and alliteration in the beginning followed by the religious diction in the second part, and ending with punctuation at the oath. To conclude the prayer following this oath, Arcite reiterates his plea to Mars for victory tomorrow.
I wanted to make this last couplet impactful as it needs to act as a final hook for Mars to aid Arcite. Chaucer put emphasis on victorie by placing it in brackets and Ecker and Crook decided to give it similar treatment by placing it as the very last word in their translation. This would be fine, however, they rhyme victory with ruefully which is not an optimistic ending to the prayer. It gives a different feeling to the prayer if it ends in this rhyme compared to the grand effect at the beginning when Chaucer rhymed victorie with glorie. I think that my use of alliteration and metaphor stays true to Chaucer’s conclusion while also offering a unique approach to drawing attention to the word victory in the last line.
Where Chaucer originally wrote ‘sorwes soore,’ I translated it to “pity on my pain” rather than take on Ecker and Crook’s “sorrow ruefully.” By doing so, it created a smoother transition using alliteration from the end of the oath into this conclusion from ‘pious to pity on my pain.’ This then allows for the last line to highlight victory by comparing it to a sweet delicacy that Mars can provide his servant. Not only does this metaphor stand out as a device unique to this last line in the prayer, it also ties back to the religious diction used to further the relationship between Mars and Arcite. Although this connects back to my own translation, it begins to stray from the original meaning Chaucer wrote.
I found it interesting in this process that I sought to make my translation a faster paced modernization of Chaucer’s poem. By doing so I seem to be following in the footsteps of the directors I have been criticizing in this course. In Beowulf and in The Knight’s Tale film adaptations, two different stories emerged from their respective original classics and were not often considered better tellings of the story than their texts because they strayed too far from the original. Perhaps crafting a alternate story is easier than attempting to recreate the work. However, in terms of translations of Arcite’s prayer, we can see now that mine brings to light more subtle ideas found in Chaucer’s writing when compared to Ecker and Crook’s while also using a variety of poetic devices to create a more dynamic rhythm.
The prayers that Palamon, Emily, and Arcite gave in Chaucer’s, The Knight’s Tale, speaks to each individual’s thoughts, their character, and their motives. In Arcite’s, he prays to the god of war, Mars, to lend him strength so that he may be able to defeat Palamon and win over Emily. My translation of the end of Arcite’s prayer is superior to the translation done by Ecker and Crook because it focuses on creating a more dynamic rhythm through the use of a variety of poetic devices such as alliteration, enjambment, assonance, and punctuation.
Though rhythm is the primary concern for my translation, there were several auxiliary considerations made to achieve this effect while making the best effort to stay true to the original text. Firstly, maintaining Chaucer’s couplet rhyme scheme was paramount and this form served as a constant between my interpretation and the original. The secondary consideration was to preserve the original meaning and definitions Chaucer intended, however, this would need to follow the path that the translation’s rhyme and rhythm suggested. In beginning the translation at lines 2401-2406, in Ecker and Crook’s translation, they decided to omit the unique extended rhyme of Arcite’s plea.
Chaucer ties together Arcite’s need for Mars’s strength with the end rhymes ‘availle, bataille, thee, me, victorie, and glorie’ across six lines. This helps drive the reader through these lines leading up to the final rhyme when it ends with the couplet victorie and glorie, the latter punctuated with an exclamation point. I decided to tie the first and last two couplets of the six lines in a similar manner. By rhyming ‘prevail, fail, tale, and they’ll’ together, this translation accomplishes a similar pacing to Chaucer’s across these lines. The gap created by the you and too is accounted for rhythmically by the use of different alliteration within and across each line beginning and ending right after one another.
A similar effect is seen in line 2402 of the original where Chaucer uses the assonance of the o in ‘lord, tomorrow, whilom, now, and do’ to lead up to the end rhymes of victorie and glorie. I tried to replicate this effect by first using the assonance of the o in “my lord, tomorrow, I will not” and then transitioning that assonance into an alliteration of f in “fail,/ For the same fighting fire,” which is followed by “burns in you,/ Burns now bright within me, too. Begin tomorrow’s tale.” As the b alliteration ends it is picked up by the t, which is finished with the s in “Sing! In your sovereign temple I solely.” This moment where the extended rhyme found in these six lines ends is punctuated with the exclamation point and carries into the next part of the prayer. Instead of finding the exclamation point at the end of the line, it is given more emphasis by beginning its own new line through the use of enjambment. This presents the content Chaucer wanted to convey in a different way by highlighting further an important transition in the poem.
Additionally, the alliteration in these lines also helps to highlight the important idea in these lines about the ‘fighting fire’ of Mars now burning within Arcite. Ecker and Crook do not treat the idea of fire in these lines with a similar importance as they subdue Arcite’s line connecting his burning fighting desire to Mars’s as an aside in parenthesis. Their translation fails to convey an inspiring image despite the fantastic material in fire that they are presented with. I attempted to heighten this connection not only through alliteration, but also by shortening lines 2404-05 to provide this moment with a unique treatment both visually and poetically in the translation.
In Arcite’s next thought, Chaucer has him delve into more religious diction through the use of words like ‘temple, avow, and trewe servant.’ I wanted to draw a stronger connection between Arcite and the religious aspect of the prayer by using words such as faith, servant blade, fate, and pious. This seems to change the space Arcite is praying in by alluding to similar modern religious spaces like churches and grand cathedrals with the specific word choice. By drawing this connection, it presents a contrast in imagery in how one might imagine a temple to Mars to look – whether a shrine to war is much different from one to Diana or Venus visually. A sacred temple of war may simply differ in what it stands for. This connection leads up to Arcite’s oath, the conclusion to his prayer.
The translation of Arcite’s oath is kept very similar between the original, Ecker and Crook’s, and mine, but my translation attempts to give it another layer of complexity through punctuation. Chaucer calls attention to the oath by using a colon only after the word bynde in the entire prayer. I wanted to further this use of punctuation as a signifier of this moment by not only using the colon to signify the beginning of the oath, but also to visually bind Arcite to it. To do so I used two dashes in, “Let this oath – to me – bind,” to create the effect. Not only does Arcite say that this oath will be binding, the reader can get a sense of the gravity of this vow through the words too. This move helps to keep the dynamic variety of devices consistent throughout each of Arcite’s thoughts in the prayer. Starting with rhyming, assonance, and alliteration in the beginning followed by the religious diction in the second part, and ending with punctuation at the oath. To conclude the prayer following this oath, Arcite reiterates his plea to Mars for victory tomorrow.
I wanted to make this last couplet impactful as it needs to act as a final hook for Mars to aid Arcite. Chaucer put emphasis on victorie by placing it in brackets and Ecker and Crook decided to give it similar treatment by placing it as the very last word in their translation. This would be fine, however, they rhyme victory with ruefully which is not an optimistic ending to the prayer. It gives a different feeling to the prayer if it ends in this rhyme compared to the grand effect at the beginning when Chaucer rhymed victorie with glorie. I think that my use of alliteration and metaphor stays true to Chaucer’s conclusion while also offering a unique approach to drawing attention to the word victory in the last line.
Where Chaucer originally wrote ‘sorwes soore,’ I translated it to “pity on my pain” rather than take on Ecker and Crook’s “sorrow ruefully.” By doing so, it created a smoother transition using alliteration from the end of the oath into this conclusion from ‘pious to pity on my pain.’ This then allows for the last line to highlight victory by comparing it to a sweet delicacy that Mars can provide his servant. Not only does this metaphor stand out as a device unique to this last line in the prayer, it also ties back to the religious diction used to further the relationship between Mars and Arcite. Although this connects back to my own translation, it begins to stray from the original meaning Chaucer wrote.
I found it interesting in this process that I sought to make my translation a faster paced modernization of Chaucer’s poem. By doing so I seem to be following in the footsteps of the directors I have been criticizing in this course. In Beowulf and in The Knight’s Tale film adaptations, two different stories emerged from their respective original classics and were not often considered better tellings of the story than their texts because they strayed too far from the original. Perhaps crafting a alternate story is easier than attempting to recreate the work. However, in terms of translations of Arcite’s prayer, we can see now that mine brings to light more subtle ideas found in Chaucer’s writing when compared to Ecker and Crook’s while also using a variety of poetic devices to create a more dynamic rhythm.