by Candace Barrington

One of the joys of each new year is receiving updates from friends, especially our Global Chaucers colleagues. This year, most of the translators we work with relayed that they are working on new projects, generally outside of Chaucer and medieval literature. John Boje, Chaucer’s Afrikaans translator in Pretoria, South Africa, wrote with slightly different news: he has begun translating Troilus and Criseyde. At the end of December 2023, he had translated 715 of the poem’s 1171 stanzas, and he projects completing the translation by October 2024.

I’m proud to possess number 16 of 20 copies of Die Pelgrimsverhale van Geoffrey Chaucer, his translation 60 years in the making. I’m also pleased that he continues to translate.

When he translates into Afrikaans, he allows us to see what Chaucer’s language might have looked and sounded like if William of Normandy had stayed home in 1066.

Most of all, his insights into translation as well as Chaucer’s Middle English text have been invaluable in my own thinking. I’m eager to learn what he has to teach us about T&C.

He has shared with me the proem to T&C Book II, from which I now share a bit with you.

      Daarom verwag ek ook nie blaam of dank
      vir hierdie werk, maar ek wil nederig vra
      om verskoon te word indien my woorde mank
      voorkom – ek volg maar net my bronteks na. (II.15-18)

Wherfore I nyl have neither thank ne blame
Of al this werk, but prey yow mekely,    
Disblameth me if any word be lame,    
For as myn auctour seyde, so sey I.     .

I like thinking of John, working in his Pretoria garden abloom with hyacinths, agapanthus, dahlias and amaryllis, letting the pleasure of his work provide the reward “vir hierdie werk.”