The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables [Hardcover]

Robert Henryson (Author), Seamus Heaney (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2009

The greatest of the late medieval Scots makars, Robert Henryson was influenced by their vision of the frailty and pathos of human life, and by the inherited poetic example of Geoffrey Chaucer. Henryson’s finest poem, and one of the rhetorical masterpieces of Scots literature, is the narrative Testament of Cresseid. Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, the Testament completes the story of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, offering a tragic account of its faithless heroine’s rejection by her lover, Diomede, and of her subsequent decline into prostitution and leprosy. Written in Middle Scots, a distinctive northern version of English, the Testament has been translated by Seamus Heaney into a confident but faithful idiom that matches the original verse form and honors the poem’s unique blend of detachment and compassion.

A master of high narrative, Henryson was also a comic master of the verse fable, and his burlesques of human weakness in the guise of animal wisdom are delicately pointed with irony. Seven of the Fables are here sparklingly translated by Heaney, their freshness rendered to the last claw and feather. Together, The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables provide a rich and wide-ranging encounter between two poets across six centuries.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nobel laureate Heaney's new versions of very old narrative poems are unlikely to make the same worldwide splash as his Beowulf, but they remain moving and memorable. Misfortune and fortune, repentance and retribution, pity and prudence, and a late-medieval Christian outlook, in which this life prepares us for the next, all pervade the stories told and retold by Henryson (d. 1505), the best poet of the much-maligned generation that followed Geoffrey Chaucer. Henryson's “The Testament of Cresseid,” set in the Trojan War, describes the last days of the title character's life. Having abandoned the lovelorn warrior Troilus for his heroic rival Diomede, Cresseid finds that Diomede has cast her aside in turn: she curses the god of love, who retaliates by giving her leprosy. She ends her days as a dignified, repentant beggar, almost unrecognized by the man she once loved: “Still, they assumed from grief so mildly borne/ And yet so cruel, she was of noble kind.” Henryson also translated (or made up) animal stories attributed to Aesop. Heaney's facing-page translations, composed (like Henryson's) in seven- to nine-line rhymed stanzas, give a fluent, often delightful modern cast to all of these pathos-filled tales. (Oct.)
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Review

Praise for Seamus Heaney’s translation of The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables:

“The Testament of Cresseid is a beautiful, rare work, unique in the history of literature for [the ‘recognition’] scene alone. Heaney has done us all a generous and graceful service.” —Ruth Padel, Financial Times

“The wintry force and appeal of [The Testament] are certainly apparent in [Heaney’s] rendering . . . Read him and you’ll want to experience the original, too.” —Sean O’Brien, The Sunday Times (London)

“The Testament of Cresseid is [Henryson’s] masterpiece, possibly the greatest short narrative poem of the Middle Ages. It mingles human sympathy, moral judgment, ironic awareness and grim humour in equal measure . . . [Heaney’s] translation of The Testament into modern English . . . is a reminder that translation is one of the glories of the English literary tradition.” —Jonathan Bate, The Sunday Telegraph

“Virtuoso moments are common in the book, with Heaney not only giving a justmodern account of Henryson, but offering something distinctive and memorable on its own account.” —Peter McDonald, The Guardian

“[Heaney’s translation of ] The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables is typically both masterful and accessible.” —Carol Ann Duffy, The Daily Telegraph

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374273480
• ISBN-13: 978-0374273484
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,057,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rhetoric meets roguery, December 13, 2009

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John L Murphy "Fionnchú" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables (Hardcover)

A middle-aged man contemplates the aftermath of Chaucer's tragic Cresseid. Abandoned by Troilus after she dallied with Diomede, did she deserve the contempt with which she was treated in this tale from the Trojan war? Henryson defends her, and his serious consideration attracts Heaney to revive from his "mid-Ulster" upbringing the speech rhythms shared with a "hidden Scotland" that he hears within this late fifteenth-century poem's elegant defense of a fallen woman, turned a leper.

Heaney, as with his translations of the medieval Irish tale of mad Sweeney and his version of "Beowulf," keeps his own direct, confident manner foremost. "Who's now to guide, accompany or stand by/Me, set at odds and made so odious/ To Diomede and noble Troilus?" is the translation of "Quha sall me gyde? Quha sall me convoy,/ Sen I fra Diomeid and nobill Troylus/ Am clene excludit, as abject odious?" (10-11) You can see here the balance of freedom and fidelity that characterizes Heaney's interpretation.

Henryson's also known for his versified fables, expanded into morality tales from Aesop and other written and oral sources. He combined the popular and learned cultures and is supposed to have been a schoolmaster. Heaney admires the Scots poet's range, similar to his own, and explains Henryson's modulation as an appealing reason for rendering his tales for a wider audience.

There's no notes beyond a few sentences setting the context for the fables, and the introduction I found suggestive rather than thorough; these remain minor shortcomings of this version. Yet Heaney points us to scholarly editions, as his emphasis here's on accessible, brisk, and sententious storylines that convey sympathy with human predicaments and moral quandries. "Hence the decision to translate the poems with rhyme and metre, to match as far as possible the rhetoric and the roguery of the originals, and in general 'keep the accent'." (xiv) These do demand to be heard aloud, and the origin of Heaney's notice of Henryson was "to translate some other narrative that could be performed by an actor" after his reading of "Beowulf." (xiii) While fewer than five thousand lines of Henryson exist, perhaps this collection of his verse will inspire such a recitation of it for us today.