Heill Pelle,

I did have Evans' and Faulkes' works to use for the translation of Hávamál,
and they were indeed much more helpful than CL's.

No translation will be better than reading in the original language, and no
translation will please everyone.

With all due respect, it is easy for native speakers to pull just about any
translation apart - I'm sure you could give the same treatment to all the
translations I have seen (Bellows, Cottle, Bray (no relation), Thorpe, etc.).
The question is, which one comes up the least faulty? Could you perhaps rank
them (and include any published translations I may have missed), so those of
us who are not experts can find out what their relative accuracy is? Is there
a published translation that you would recommend?

I, as I imagine you, would love to see a flawless translation of the Poetic
Edda on the shelves of every bookstore. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened
yet - and may never happen. I may have been overenthusiastic touting the
accuracy of CL's translation, or may have mistaken literality for accuracy,
but I'm also trying to do the best I can with what I've got.

One more question: Are there any English translations that have been done by
native Icelandic speakers? If not, why not?

Dan

PS: Sorry, Haukur and everyone, for clogging mailboxes with the quoted
original post - I should have trimmed it down.

"hveenegaard " wrote:

> Dan,
>
> Dronke's version of Hávamál has still not been published, so
> I cannot say, really. I doubt Vol IV of her work will see light
> any time soon, but Clive Tolley is working on it with her, so
> hopefully we won't have to wait 30 years, like with Vol II. If
> the translations in Vols I - II are anything to go by, at least
> we will finally have a (mostly) reliable translation.
>
> Compared to Völuspá, Hávamál is a virtually TEEMING with textual
> enigmas, so I find it difficult to imagine that Larrington's
> translation of it is any better than her Völuspá (even though
> the translator claims that "the poetry is not difficult to
> understand" (sic!)). I haven't been through the whole thing
> with a nitpicker's magnifying glass, andI shudder at the very
> thought of doing so. Going through the whole of Völuspá in this
> manner was a gruelling labour, even if I only did part of the real
> work myself.
>
> If you are studying Hávamál, I recommend David Evans' edition.
> He doesn't translate, but the textual notes are really thorough,
> and bring together most of the relevant scholarship. Faulkes'
> glossary is also really helpful to the student.
>
> > I still think CL´s translation is one of the most accessible and
> > relatively accurate versions around ...
>
> How can this translation be said to be "relatively accurate"?
>
> > > Ek man jötna I, born of giants,
> > > ÁR UM BORNA remember very early
> > > þá er FORÐUM mik those who nurtured
> > > fædda höfðu. me then.
>
> Or this one:
>
> > > Skuld helt skildi, Skuld held one shield,
> > > en Skögul ÖNNUR Skögul another
>
> Or this:
>
> > > Baldrs bróðir var Baldr's brother was
> > > of borinn SNEMMA, born very quickly
>
> Or this:
>
> > > Fyllisk fjörvi The corpses of
> > > feigra manna, doomed men fall,
>
> ... just to take a few examples. It seems to me that most of this
> garbage is just about as "accurate" as an attempt by a less than
> average second-year student in "Íslenska fyrir erlenda stúdenta" at
> the U. of Ice.
>
> May I recommend that you read the Saga-Book review of Larrington's
> translation, by Edward Pettit and John Porter? Among other things,
> they said:
>
> "A detailed examination of her translation unfortunately shows it to
> be riddled with basic errors and stylistic infelicities ..."
>
> And:
>
> "It is regrettable that Oxford University Press should lend its name
> to a work of such deficient scholarship, still more regrettable that
> as a result many new readers will place their trust in its accuracy."
>
> I share these regrets, and believe the unwary reader needs to be
> told about them. If you choose to place your trust in Larrington's
> "relative accuracy", and recommend it to others on the basis of
> this trust, this is, of course, your own business, and none of mine.
>
> Regards, and good luck with your translation!
> Pelle
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
> ...aðrir spakmæli.
>
> - Keth
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
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>
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--
Daniel Bray
dbray@...
School of Studies in Religion A20
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia

"Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an
unidentified source." Ron Nesen