Keth wrote:

>>I would write as a variant:_
>>"I desire to cease. The dises that Odin
>>has sent me from Valhall are inviting me
>>into his home; Glad shall I drink ale
>>with the aesir in the high seat. All hope
>>for life is gone. Laughing I shall die.

Óskar replied:

>"Dises"? You're not the first one I see who, lacking an English
>cognate, simply projects one, or digs up an extremely archaic,
>long-forgotten one :) A Word like "byrnie" (= armor, ON "brynja") in
>ON kennings translations is one example...
>
>When I translate, I usually prefer to use words that educated people
>at least have a decent chance of knowing. I can't see why "dísir"
>shouldn't be translated as "maidens" or "nymphs" there. Objections?

This is generally called "transliteration" as opposed to translation, and
there are the alternate schools of thoughtregarding it. I think the one
you describe is very valid, but moreso when directed at a general audience.

However, one of the words you mention, "nymph", is itself a transliteration
from Greek into French, which has since spread to English - the reason
being that there was no word in French meaning "water spirit which appears
as a young maiden", so when describing Greek myth, it's hard to tell the
tale of a nymph and translate the word to somthing such as "maiden"... it
just doesn't work well. Similarly, while in this particular case, saying
"The maidens that Odin has sent me from Valhall," will probably not be
misinterpreted as being the same as a maiden from the next
village. However, if someone was reading a passage which read, "The
farmer's wife left a portion of the meal for the maidens," it would just be
confusing without more context about the dísir.

Also, it is entirely possible to logically take a "translation over
transliteration" stance to what I think is an unnecessary extreme, in which
case Keth's translation would have to be "The maidens that Odin has sent me
from Hall of the Slain," and so most of the time, I think it's simply a
matter of how much a particular translator wants to annotate his work, or
provide a glossary of unfamiliar terms. I tend to transliterate quite a
bit, simply because I prefer using precise terms - "Æsir" and "Jötnar", or
"Ases and Jotuns", is more meaningful to me than "gods" and "giants"
(beside the fact that Icelandic has separate words for "giant" which they
would use if they meant "giant" ;-)

-Selv

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