Anoniem

Het Middelnederlandse Egidiuslied staat in het Gruuthusehandschrift en is met muzieknotatie opgenomen. Mogelijk is het geschreven door Jan Moritoen.

Ik heb het in 2007 vertaald in het kader van de David Reid Translation Prize.

The David Reid Poetry Translation Prize was a prize of 750 euros, awarded twice yearly by Subtext Translation, for an outstanding translation into English of a well-known Dutch poem. Known as the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize, the award commemorated David A.S. Reid (1929–1982), who was an inspiring teacher and a gifted translator.

Twice a year, between the Autumn of 2006 and the Spring of 2011, the title of the poem to be translated was posted on the Subtext Translations website at midday on 1 September and 1 March. The deadline for the translation was always two months later: on 1 November and 1 May respectively. In principle, all the entries were posted on the Subtext Translations website, first the winner and the runner–up, the others in order of arrival. By submitting a translation the translator had agreed to publication in this form. The translator retained the copyright.

The Jury consisted of a changing panel of four people: a literature specialist teaching English at a Dutch university, a professional Dutch–English translator, a published British poet, and a coordinator. They included Bart Westerweel (Leiden University), Hans Bertens (Utrecht University), Maureen Peeck (Utrecht University); Sarah Kinebanian, David McKay as translators; and Donald Gardner, Kate Foley and Paul Evans as poets. Helene Reid was the coordinator throughout. The Jury's decision was final and posted on this website on 1 December and 1 June.

Jury report for the translation of 'Het Egidiuslied' by Jan Moritoen (?).

The judges had no hesitation in awarding the 3rd David Reid Translation Prize to Francis Jones for his Geordie version of the medieval Egidiuslied. With the ingenious device of making Egidius a collier, Francis Jones has recreated the heartfelt simplicity of the original.

[...]- in using dialect Jones has recaptured the immediate sense of grief and loss, the human emotion, more effectively than is maybe possible in modern standard English.

The entrant who came nearest to doing the latter in the jury's view was Renée Delhez, who was also the runner-up in the first contest. Her translation is true to the text and to metre and rhyme and it reads well. What she captures in her version is the smoothness, sweetness and lyricism (preserving the caesuras) of a text that is after all as much a song as a poem.

Donald Gardner, November 2007

on behalf of the jury