Repository path: workshop/translations/malory-worship/R04-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-malory-worship-R04-v1 — Malory, Le Morte Darthur XVIII.xxiv, ME→ModE

• Source: Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book XVIII ch. xxiv (Caxton's 1485 division), Project Gutenberg #1252, the whole chapter, 821 Middle English words, stored at ../source-me.txt. One editorial change and no other: hard line-wrapping removed inside paragraphs.
• Language pair: Middle English → present-day English. The project's first intralingual translation into English and its second intralingual pair — the first was T-genji-yomogiu-R04-v1, classical → modern Japanese, which is the pair A-yosano-yomogiu is built on. That is why this passage was chosen.
• Regime: R04 v1.0 (lead close translation, source-only). Draft frozen separately as T-malory-worship-R06-v1 at commit 4b7c10f, before this revision began, per R04 §Procedure 2a. Length 821 ME → 855 (draft) → 851 (revision) English words.
• Translated by: the lead agent, in session. Cost: $0, never ledgered (charter §3, A4).
• Culture-bound-item census frozen at ../census-frozen.md, commit 6d79d35, before a word of the draft was written.
• Evaluation: none designed and none licensed — Tier D has not passed. This artifact is consumed by E-20260729f-inheritance-census as a second intralingual case, never as a quality comparison, and the lead never judges it.

Contamination: suspected, and the instrument means something different here

No canonical modern-English rendering of Malory exists, and the only one that exists at all is not freely reachable. Verified rather than asserted: Dorsey Armstrong, Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur: A New Modern English Translation Based on the Winchester Manuscript (2009) is the sole modern-English translation found, and archive.org's copy (sirthomasmalorys0000malo) returns Access-restricted-item: true with no full text. Nothing was read from it. So the risk CLAUDE.md's standing rule guards — reproducing a canonical published rendering from memory — is structurally absent here, in a way it is not for Turgenev or Chekhov: there is no default English Malory to reproduce, because Malory is the default English Malory.

What can be measured is overlap with the source, and for an intralingual pair that is the study's own variable rather than a contamination signal. tools/dependence_check.py, draft against the Middle English:

The longest run is "knights then sir launcelot told the king and the queen how the lady huntress shot him in the forest of windsor in the buttock with" — a sentence I left almost untouched because almost nothing in it needed touching. The tool's verdict column prints DEPENDENT?. That verdict is meaningless here and the vocabulary is the reason: every published figure this project holds is overlap between a lead translation and another translation, where a long shared run is evidence of dependence. Between a translation and its own source in the same language, a long shared run is the free-copy option being taken. The same number means opposite things and the instrument cannot tell which case it is in. Recorded as method note (bdw).

For scale, the project's measured lead-versus-published runs are 0 tokens (Ovid) to 21 (Turgenev). This is 25, against the source.

So this tournament and these jousts lasted long, till it was near night, for the knights of the Round Table kept coming in to King Arthur's side; and the king was angry beyond measure that he and his knights could not prevail that day. Then Sir Gawaine said to the king: I wonder where Sir Bors de Ganis has been all this day, and his company of Sir Launcelot's blood; I wonder that all this day they have not been about you: there is some reason for it, said Sir Gawaine. By my head, said Sir Kay, Sir Bors is over there, and has been all day, on the right hand of this field, and he and his blood are bearing themselves more honourably than we are. It may well be, said Sir Gawaine, but I always fear some trick; for on pain of my life, said Sir Gawaine, this knight with the red sleeve of gold is Sir Launcelot himself — I can see it plainly by his riding and by his great strokes; and the other knight in the same colours is that good young knight, Sir Lavaine. And that knight with the green shield is my brother, Sir Gareth, and he has disguised himself, for nothing will ever make him fight against Sir Launcelot, because Sir Launcelot knighted him. By my head, said Arthur, nephew, I believe you; so tell me now what you think best. Sir, said Sir Gawaine, you shall have my advice: have the trumpets sound the recall to quarters; for if he is Sir Launcelot du Lake, and my brother Sir Gareth with him, and that good young knight Sir Lavaine to help them, trust me truly it will be no use to strive with them unless we fall ten or twelve upon one knight, and that would be no honour, but shame. You say truth, said the king; and to tell the truth, said the king, it would be a shame to us, as many as we are, to set upon them any more; for you may be sure, said King Arthur, they are three good knights, and that knight with the sleeve of gold above all.

So then they sounded the recall to quarters; but at once King Arthur sent word to the four kings and to the mighty duke, asking them that the knight with the sleeve of gold should not leave them, but that the king might speak with him. Then at once King Arthur dismounted and had his armour taken off, and took a little riding-horse and rode after Sir Launcelot, for he had kept a man watching him all along. And so he found him among the four kings and the duke; and there the king asked them all to supper, and they said they would come gladly. And when they had their armour off, then King Arthur knew Sir Launcelot, Sir Lavaine, and Sir Gareth. Ah, Sir Launcelot, said King Arthur, this day you have made it hot for me and my knights.

So they went to Arthur's quarters all together, and there was a great feast and great revelry, and the prize was given to Sir Launcelot; and the heralds proclaimed of him that he had struck down fifty knights, and Sir Gareth thirty-five, and Sir Lavaine twenty-four knights. Then Sir Launcelot told the king and the queen how the lady huntress shot him in the forest of Windsor, in the buttock, with a broad arrow, and how the wound of it was at that time six inches deep, and as long. Arthur also blamed Sir Gareth because he had left his own company and held with Sir Launcelot. My lord, said Sir Gareth, he knighted me, and when I saw him so hard pressed, I thought it was to my honour to help him, for I saw him doing so much, and so many noble knights against him; and when I understood that he was Sir Launcelot du Lake, I was ashamed to see so many knights against him alone. Truly, said King Arthur to Sir Gareth, you say well, and you have done honourably, and won great honour to yourself; and all the days of my life, said King Arthur to Sir Gareth, be sure I shall love you, and trust you the better for it. For always, said Arthur, it is an honourable knight's deed to help another honourable knight when he sees him in great danger; for always an honourable man will be loath to see an honourable man shamed; and he that is of no honour, and behaves with cowardice, will never show nobility, nor any kind of goodness, where he sees a man in any danger, for then a coward will always show no mercy; and always a good man will do to another man as he would be done by. So then there were great feasts for kings and dukes, and revelry, sport, and play, and every kind of noble conduct was practised; and he that was courteous, true, and faithful to his friend was cherished in that time.

Translator's log

Frozen before any evaluation of this translation was designed. Decisions and alternatives, not quality claims. Written at translation time; items 1–24 during the draft, items 25–31 during the self-revision, and the revision items say what they changed.

The worship thread — the passage's whole problem

1. worship and its derivatives occur ten times in 821 words: worshipfully (twice), worship as a possessible quantity (to yourself great worship, it was my worship), worship as a social standing one can lack (he that is of no worship), worshipful as a property of a deed (a worshipful knight's deed), and worshipful as a property of a person (a worshipful man, three times). Malory's sense is honour, credit, standing won and lost by deeds in public. Modern English has the word — and it has drifted to religious veneration, keeping the older sense only in a fossil address (Your Worship) and in the marriage service. The free copy is available at every one of the ten sites and is wrong at every one of them.

2. The choice was whether to take one substitute across all ten positions or to solve each site locally. Live candidates for a single substitute: honour (and honourable, honourably), credit, renown, repute, glory. Credit and repute have no adjective that fits a worshipful man. Renown and glory carry only the loud half — they cannot do he that is of no worship, which is about a floor rather than a summit. honour is the only candidate with a noun, an adjective and an adverb that all survive, and it was chosen for that and not for its sense, which is slightly warmer and more inward than Malory's.

3. One site fought the choice. "methought it was my worship to help him" renders naturally as "I thought it was my honour to help him" — and in present-day English that is a politeness formula meaning I was honoured, which is close to the opposite of Malory (it was to my credit; it added to my standing). Taking the thread word created a new false friend at one site. Repaired by expanding to "I thought it was to my honour to help him", which keeps the noun and blocks the formula. This cost is invisible in the thread count and is the reason the count is not the whole story.

4. Result: 10 of 10 held on one lexeme, and position for position in the same derivational form — the source's sequence worshipfully · worship · worship · worshipfully · worship · worshipful · worshipful · worshipful · worshipful · worship comes out as honourably · honour · honour · honourably · honour · honourable · honourable · honourable · honourable · honour. What was given up is that Malory's worship is external and audited — heralds count it, kings award it — and honour in modern English is at least half internal.

The culture-bound items — copy or substitute

The frozen census lists twenty. Where the item was left standing I have not logged it individually; where it was not, here is why.

5. fellowship → company (and, at he left his fellowship, his own company). Modern fellowship is either an academic stipend or a church social; the sworn-companions sense is available only through Tolkien, which is a borrowing from this very tradition and would have read as an allusion. Substituted, unwillingly — this is the item where the free copy was closest to usable.

6. blood → kin in the draft, restored to blood in the revision (see item 25).

7. make (a man) knight → knighted. The source has the periphrasis twice (he made him knight, he made me a knight); modern English has a verb for it. Substituting a verb for a light- verb construction is a grammatical change, not a lexical one, and it removes the source's echo between the two occurrences.

8. blow unto lodging → have the trumpets sound the recall to quarters. This is the largest single explicitation in the translation: two content words become six. Blow has no object in the source because the reader supplies the trumpets; lodging is the encampment, and unto lodging is the signal's name. Alternatives considered: sound the retreat (wrong — this is the end of a day's sport, not a rout); blow the recall (keeps the compression, loses the destination); leaving it whole and glossing (refused — R04 has no apparatus).

9. lodging → quarters, at all three sites. Modern lodging is commercial accommodation.

10. hackney → riding-horse. What the word carries is the contrast with the warhorse Arthur has just got off: a small, ordinary horse for a king going quietly to find someone. Riding-horse states the contrast and loses the word. Hack has the right sense and the wrong register; palfrey would be substituting one obsolete word for another.

11. unarm → had his armour taken off / had their armour off. The source verb is transitive and reflexive at once (unarmed him) and implies squires doing it. English lost the verb; the periphrasis restores the attendants, who in the source are invisible. A loss that adds information, which is the shape A-yosano-yomogiu §3(b) names as forced explicitation.

12. noblesse → noble conduct. Modern English keeps noblesse only inside noblesse oblige.

13. Everything else was copied: tournament, jousts, the Round Table, sleeve of gold, shield, heralds, the prize, broad arrow, Sir, duke, knight, and revel (in its modern form revelry). Thirteen copies, seven substitutions.

The other time-drifted words, which are not census items

14. boot (it will be no boot to strive) → no use. Dead in this sense outside to boot.

15. namely (and namely that knight with the sleeve of gold) = especially. Rendered above all. Modern namely would have inverted the sentence into a specification.

16. gentleness (never shall he show gentleness) → nobility. Malory means the conduct proper to gentle birth. Modern gentleness is mildness, and in this sentence — about a man who shows no mercy to someone in danger — the free copy would have read almost right, which is what makes it worse than a word that reads wrong.

17. bestead (so hard bestead) → so hard pressed. 18. yede → went. 19. sooth → the truth, which makes for to say sooth and ye say truth two sentences apart both come out as truth; the source has two different words and I have one. 20. wit ye well → you may be sure / be sure. 21. guile → some trick; guile is current but has narrowed to a quality of persons rather than a stratagem, so I dread me ever of guile would not read as I fear a trap. 22. dured → lasted. 23. `spy (he had a spy upon him) → he had kept a man watching him; modern spy* is a profession, and here it is a watch set on a friend.

24. relieved ever unto King Arthur → kept coming in to King Arthur's side. The military sense of relieve survives but only for besieged places, not for a side in a mêlée.

The self-revision

25. blood restored from kin. On rereading the draft, of Sir Launcelot's kin and he and his kin were both clearer and both wrong: Malory's blood is an allegiance you fight under, not a genealogical fact, and blood survives in modern English (of royal blood) with enough of that in it. This is the only place in the revision where a substitution was undone in favour of the free copy, and it moved the count from 12 copies to 13.

26. do more worshipfully had been drafted as are winning more honour, which turned an adverb into a noun and quietly made the thread's grammatical range narrower. Revised to are bearing themselves more honourably.

27. blow the retreat to quarters → sound the recall to quarters (twice). Retreat implies being driven off.

28. for he had always kept a watch on him → for he had kept a man watching him all along. The draft's phrasing let a watch be read as a period of time.

29. you have given me and my knights a hot time of it → you have made it hot for me and my knights. Closer to heated, and the draft's idiom is twentieth-century.

30. goes about with cowardice → behaves with cowardice.

31. and won yourself great honour → and won great honour to yourself, keeping the source's dative.

What this passage does not contain, and was chosen partly for

32. It has no honorific system, so the C1 control A-yosano-yomogiu §3 supplies has no counterpart here; Sir and my lord are lexical and were copied. It also has no proper-name problem beyond spelling. Both absences make the item census cleaner than the Genji one, which is the reason this chapter was taken rather than a more famous one.

33. (internal-judgment-only) The chapter was chosen over the Book XXI death of Arthur and over XVIII.xxv ("the month of May") because both of those are heavily anthologised and the first sentences of each are almost certainly memorised; this one is the aftermath of a tournament and is not quoted. That is a selection on expected contamination, made before translating, and it is a judgement about likely memorisation rather than a measurement of it.