William of Palerne is cited by scholars as being either the oldest or one of the oldest poetic works in what is referred to as the Alliterative Revivial of the Fourteenth Century.
Now, for the first time, a new translation of William of Palerne creates a complete alliterative edition of the poem, using the Old French source text to fill the gaps in the extant manuscript at King’s College Cambridge. Here I introduce readers to the romance and explain the process of translating it.
The story of William of Palerne
William of Palerne (aka The Romance of William and the Werewolf) tells the story of two young princes wrongly robbed of their inheritance by the contrivance of jealous relatives. One, prince Alphonse of Spain, is turned into a werewolf by his stepmother in order to favour her own son as heir to the kingdom. The other, prince William of Palerne (Palermo), is subject to an assassination attempt by agents of his jealous uncle.
Before the attempt can be made, William is rescued by the werewolf and taken from Palermo across the sea to Rome. The story follows how William is brought up by a cowherd in the forests around Rome before being discovered and taken back to the city by the Roman Emperor.
Becoming a young gentleman, knight and military leader, he eventually elopes with Melior, the emperor’s daughter, and then, with the werewolf’s help, is able to evade capture and ultimately return to Palermo after a series of adventures.
Once at Palermo, he learns that his father is long dead but helps his besieged mother defend the city from an attack by the King of Spain. After the Spanish king is defeated and imprisoned, he is recognised by the werewolf as his father; the king’s wife is summoned to Palermo and the werewolf is converted back to prince Alphonse.
When William marries Melior, he eventually becomes emperor of Rome; Alphonse marries William’s sister and good governance is established across the whole of both kingdoms.
Challenges in producing a translation of William of Palerne
A translation of William of Palerne is immediately confronted with a fundamental problem: the surviving text of the poem (contained in Cambridge, King’s College, MS 13) is missing its opening passages, as well as a key section early in the narrative.
However, and fortunately, it is possible to reproduce these passages because the romance’s French source - Guillaume de Palerne - still survives. Housed in the Bibliotheque de l’Arsenal de Paris, the Old French source text was also transcribed into a print edition by Henri Michelant in 1876.
From this, it is possible to create a modern English translation. It is at this point we actually come very close to the experience of the original Middle English translator (also known as William); we must translate the text for comprehension by an English audience.
As Scribe-William says, he is conducting his work “for those who know no French nor ever understood it”.
How to translate - verse or prose?
There is some debate as to whether it is possible, or even necessary, to translate a source poem in verse form given that written and spoken versions of a specific language usually have their own differences to the target (translated) text.
Paul Selver (The Art of Translating Poetry) highlighted some pros and cons of attempting to replicate the source verse in the target text. While pointing out that verse translation is essential to a poem’s character, prose enables the translator to recreate the source as exactly as possible.
Burton Raffel, in his translation of Chretien’s Yvain, points out the difficulties of matching the metre of source as well as the complexity of adhering to rhyme. As he says, “Not only is French considerably more rhyme rich than English, but it is also a syllable-timed rather than a stress-timed language”.
It is notable that Scribe-William himself confronted this difficulty. Rejecting both the rhyme and the metre of his source text, he re-wrote the poem in the alliterative long line form, a form with its own metre and stress patterns.
Translating the Old French to modern English
In my new translation of William of Palerne (The Romance of William and the Werewolf, published by Unbound), I follow Scribe-William’s example.
As the appendices of my book reveal, I began by laying out the Old French source and creating a parallel literal version in English alongside it.
Next, I converted this to alliterative long line verse in order to weave this seamlessly into the rest of my translation of Scribe-William’s text so that the final translation of the whole is revealed as a consistent piece.
However, this is not as simple as it sounds. Just as Scribe-William had to do, I needed to translate with rhythm and stress in mind to recreate the four-stress pattern of the rest of the English text.
This needs to be achieved without artifice in order to match the remaining text of the Middle English poem. I hope, if you read my translation, that you think this process has been successful.
The remainder of the translation is undertaken using the Middle English editions of the romance produced by Sir Frederic Madden (1832); Walter Skeat (1898) and Gerrit Bunt (1985).
As far as I know, this is the first translation of William of Palerne ever to have been produced in the alliterative long line of the Middle English source and with the source’s lacunae addressed by the same process as that used by the fourteenth century scribe.
Please order a copy of the book yourself (available directly from me or through all good bookshops and online). If you enjoy the book, please also consider leaving a review on Amazon – every little helps in promoting my own Revival of the Alliterative Revival itself!
Order a signed, dedicated copy of The Romance of William and the Werewolf
I am extremely proud of this book, As well as a complete translation of the romance, the book also includes: an historical introduction; detailed appendices examining the role of the narrator and the romance's original 12th Century Old French source; comprehensive notes; and a thorough bibliography should you wish to undertake further research into this magnificent romance.
The book published on 19th December 2024 (US publication date 4th March 2025); copies are available through all good bookshops, online, or direct from Mythical Britain with a personal dedication. I hope to have my own copies ready for despatch before that date.
About the author, Michael Smith
Michael Smith is a British translator and illustrator of medieval literature; he is also an accomplished printmaker, whose work is in private collections worldwide.
His books, including a translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Alliterative Morte Arthure, are available through all the usual outlets. His forthcoming translation of The Romance of William and the Werewolf publishes on 19th December, 2024. All Michael's books feature his linocut prints as their illustrations.
For more details of Michael's books and how to purchase signed copies, click here.
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