The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bearslayer, by Andrejs Pumpurs, Translated by Arthur Cropley

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Title: Bearslayer A free translation from the unrhymed Latvian into English heroic verse

Author: Andrejs Pumpurs

Release Date: January 2, 2006 [eBook #17445]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEARSLAYER***

Copyright (C) 2005 by Arthur Cropley.

BEARSLAYER

by

Andrejs Pumpurs (1841-1902)

A free translation from the unrhymed Latvian into English heroic verse

by

                           Arthur Cropley
                       University of Hamburg

Copyright (C) 2005 by Arthur Cropley

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Technical Notes

Summary

Canto 1: The Revelation of the Bearslayer

Canto II: Bearslayer Begins His Life as a Hero

Canto III: Bearslayer and Laimdota Are Betrayed

Canto IV: The Latvians Suffer Many Hardships

Canto V: The Journey to the Homeland

Canto VI: The Struggle against the Invaders

Glossary of Personal and Place Names

FOREWORD

Most societies seem to have epic heroes and events that define them as they like to see themselves: Even a young society such as Australia has Ned Kelly, Eureka Stockade, and ANZAC. Others have their Robin Hood, Siegfried, Roland, or Davy Crockett. Lacplesis (Bearslayer) is such a work. Bearslayer is patriotic, brave, strong, tough, loyal, wise, fair, and virtuous, and he loves nature. He embodies the strengths and virtues of the Latvian folk in a legendary age of greatness, before they were subjugated and corrupted by "Strangers".

The poem was important in the growth of Latvian self-awareness As Jazeps Rudzitis, the eminent Latvian folklorist and literary scholar, put it, "There is no other work in Latvian literature whose story has penetrated mass consciousness as deeply or resounded as richly in literature and art as Bearslayer." Thus, it seemed worthwhile to me to make the poem available to people who wish to read it in English, and this volume is the result. It contains the fruits of two years' labour.

In writing Lacplesis Andrejs Pumpurs made an enormous contribution to Latvian literature. Thus, it may seem presumptuous that I have given myself equal prominence with him on the title page. After all, he is the author of the original poem, of which the present text is merely a translation. However, the task of translating a poem is much more than that of taking the words of the source language and replacing them with equivalent words from the target language. In Latvian, in addition to tulkot (to translate), there is a second verb atdzejot, which means approximately "re-versify". As I explain in the Technical Notes (p. iii), I have transformed Pumpurs's original Latvian work into an English poem in heroic verse: The result is an atdzejojums, not "merely" a translation.

The moral support I received from a number of people during the two years I worked on the translation was particularly important to me. I am especially indebted to Edgars Kariks of the Baltic Office of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, who gave constant encouragement and concrete support, and Ojars Kalnin of the Latvian Institute in Riga, who was extremely positive and supportive from an early stage in the project. These two gave me the courage to keep going. Among others, Rita Berzin read an early fragment and encouraged me to believe I was on the right track, and Jana Felder (née Martinson) responded enthusiastically to a presentation at a conference. Valters Nollendorfs encouraged me to trust my own feeling of what sounded right, and Guntis Smidchens showed interest in the translation from the point of view of a university teacher.

I am greatly indebted to my Latvian teacher in Adelaide, Ilze Ostrovska. Without her I would never have learned enough Latvian to read the original poem. Mirdza Kate Baltais edited the first version of the manuscript and helped me eliminate a very large number of errors, as well as making numerous suggestions for improvements. It is definitely not her fault that there are still errors in the text-quite apart from certain liberties that I have allowed myself (see p.iii). My colleague in Riga, Kaspars Klavin, read the entire manuscript and made a number of sensitive and insightful suggestions for corrections and improvements, for which I am grateful.

My son, Andrew Cropley, discussed the project with me many times, and suggested the addition of a Glossary (see p.164). He also built the Bearslayer website, with which some readers will be familiar (http//:web.aanet.com.au/Bearslayer). My wife, Alison, was patient and encouraging throughout, as well as providing artwork for the cover.

Adelaide, January 2006 Arthur Cropley

TECHNICAL NOTES

This is a free translation into English heroic verse of Lacplesis (Bearslayer) by Andrejs Pumpurs, first published in Latvian in 1888. The translation here is a corrected version of the original, which was published in 2005. Lacplesis has been translated into Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish and at least three times into Russian, as well as into Japanese! An English translation was published by Rita Berzin in 1988. This used poetic language, but the text was unrhymed and its metre irregular. It is also very difficult to obtain. Various prose translations of fragments also exist. The present translation is in rhyme and has a strict metre. As far as I know, it is the only existing translation of the entire poem into English verse.

In the interests of telling a good story in an easily understandable way I have omitted or shifted to a slightly different location an occasional line in Pumpurs's text, perhaps a dozen lines in the entire poem. I have also occasionally inserted lines that were not in the original text, again perhaps a dozen in the entire poem. My translation is also very loose in some places-an important priority for me was a poem that flowed well-and I have allowed myself some liberties. I apologize to those who are offended. I have, however, followed the sequence of events exactly as Pumpurs told them, and have retained virtually all Pumpurs's metaphors and similar poetic devices, such as the moon's rays being described as bars of silver, or mist as dripping like blood. I have tried to recapture in the English the moods suggested to me by the original Latvian: rustic joy, horror, tenderness, or despair.

The translation is also free because I wanted to maintain a strict metre as well as to achieve the effect of an English epic poem. The latter goal involved