Sir Orfeo is an anonymous Middle English poem dating from the late 13th or early 14th century, most famously translated by Tolkien. Somehow it has always passed me by, until late last year the amazing Eloise Millar from Galley Beggar Press told me that it was one of her favourite poems and asked whether I’d ever considered translating it. As she explained what it was about over afternoon tea, I could hardly believe what I was hearing – it retells the Greek Myth of Orpheus rescuing Eurydice from the Underworld, but moves the narrative to Arthurian Britain, where she is stolen not by Hades but the FAERIE KING. Obviously, I got that shiver down my spine, as when I first encountered Ovid’s Heroides. Arthurian legend AND classical myth. How could I not have heard of this? Why had no other poets attempted a new translation of a book this cool? As Zadie Smith recently noted in The New Yorker about her encounter with the Nineteenth Century Tichborne Case (which has inspired her novel The Fraud): ‘it struck me like a found art object: perfect for my purposes. One of those gifts from the universe a writer gets once in a lifetime’. (About the fourth gift in my lifetime, but still!)
Obviously I hurried home and began translating it immediately. Almost straight away another coincidence gave me that feeling of destiny – I realised the poem is set in Winchester, where I have recently been hanging out since becoming Artistic Director of the Winchester Poetry Festival (which, btw, is this October, with the programme now live – another post to follow).
I worked from this original – Sir Orfeo | Robbins Library Digital Projects (rochester.edu) – which has an excellent glossary, and then just took it a verse at a time. My main formal decision was to translate it into ballad quatrains – abcb – instead of the original couplets – aabb. As it’s a ‘lay’ about a musician, it seemed to me important to keep the iambic pulse of the original (which seems mainly iambic tetrameters of 8 beats though there’s quite a bit of flex), and also that it rhymed. However, having to meet a rhyme at the end of every single short line gave me very little room to manoeuvre, and soon got a bit relentless.
By shifting to the ballad form – which is good for narrative anyway, and which I’ve written in a lot so am comfortable with – I gained more breathing space, allowing it to sound more natural, as well as ensuring I picked different rhyme pairs than Tolkien. Arranging the text in quatrains also allowed for more white space on the page which I like too – it gives the amazing images room in the mind’s eye before you move onto the next one.
Anyway, although publication is not yet confirmed, I’m very happy to be premiering my new translation of this haunting, sinister and romantic ballad in the fitting and beautiful setting of Winchester’s Great Hall, beneath the Round Table! It’s going to be absolutely magical, with local musicians also playing the ballad version of Sir Orfeo. It’s FREE (which means you also get to see the round table for free) on Saturday 16th of September at 12.30pm as part of Heritage Open Days. Thanks are due to Amy Brown the Winchester Poetry Festival Manager for all her hard work pulling this off. Book a ticket on eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sir-orfeo-a-new-translation-poetry-reading-with-clare-pollard-tickets-694231032707 and I hope to see you there.
clarepollard 