Pearl by Simon Armitage Page A

his other works, though one that still required all the necessary components of narrative. The echoing, sonic qualities of the poem brought about by alliteration are heightened through use of repetition, or ‘concatenation’, in which a word or phrase in the last line of the first stanza in each section is repeated in the first and last line of each stanza throughout that section, then once more in the first line of the following section, thus producing a sort of poetic passing of the baton. To complete the effect, the opening line of the poem is recalled in its final line, representing a circularity or spherical endlessness reminiscent of a pearl stone itself. Some of the repeated words or phrases operate as puns or homonyms in the original, for example the word ‘mone’ used throughout section XVIII, which can mean either moon or month. ‘Deme’, in section VI, has multiple meanings (e.g. judge, estimate), and in cases such asthis, where no direct contemporary equivalent exists, the latter-day translator is faced with some hard choices. The same is true where the original definition is difficult to pin down, as with ‘adubbemente’ in section II, which has been translated variously as adornment, splendour, wonderment, embellishment and (by me) ornament. Each of those definitions might seem to be little more than a minor variation on a theme, but choosing one then working it into the text on nine further occasions has serious ramifications for the words that precede and follow.
    But the biggest dilemma concerns the principal technique by which the poem operates, namely that of rhyme, with each stanza adhering to a strict rhyme scheme of ababababbcbc. Some translators have stuck to the rhyme scheme by preserving many of the poem’s original end words, most of which are archaic to the modern reader or even obsolete (e.g. ‘spenned’, ‘sweven’). Some, like Marie Borroff, have made use of old-fashioned terms such as ‘demesne’, ‘descried’ and ‘agleam’, then manipulated the surrounding sentence structure so as to position those rhyme-words at the end of lines. Others have introduced new material into the poem in order to complete acoustic partnerships. For example, Tolkien offers ‘I vow that from over orient seas’ as line three to chime with ‘please’ at the end of line one, yet as nifty as his solution appears, line three actually reads, ‘Oute of Oryent, I hardyly saye’ (roughly: ‘in all the Orient, I confidently say’), with no mention at all of the sea. A more radical approach is to forgo all the formalities of the original and aim for something far more impressionistic, a version rather than a translation, with all the associated excitements and disappointments. Or to sacrifice the harmonies of the poem in pursuit of literal definitions, thereby securing a more faithful rendition, semantically speaking,but offering an impoverished poetic experience lacking atmosphere and character. I draw attention to the shortcomings of these different methodologies not out of criticism but out of sympathy. While working on the poem, every decision feels like a trade-off between sound and sense, between medieval authenticity and latter-day clarity, and between the precise and the poetic. My own response has been to allow rhymes to occur as naturally as possible within sentences, internally or at the end of lines, and to let half-rhymes and syllabic rhymes play their part, and for the poem’s musical orchestration to be performed by pronounced alliteration, looping repetition and the quartet of beats in each line. So formalists and technicians scanning for a ladder of rhyme-words down the right hand margin of this translation will be frustrated, though hopefully my solution will appeal to the ear and the voice.
    So what is Pearl about? Notice is given from early on in the poem that the pearl is both a jewel and a young girl, referred to as ‘it’ and ‘her’, both a prized object and a beloved