Sæll Thomas!
 
The only light I can shed on this is the analysis given in Barnes' reader, where it defines "spyrr" as the verb meaning "asks" and "at" as a preposition meaning "about".  This preposition is used absolutely, i.e. without a following noun or noun phrase, 'it' - Bodvar's action - being understood.  Such usage is often classed as adverbial rather than prepositional.
 
This leaves us with a close translation of
  ... and he asked no-one about it
 
I suppose Jones and Byock felt that sounded a little 'translated' and I assume that if he had asked someone, it would have been to check if this was ok... i.e. to ask permission.
 
Does this help?  I'm afraid I don't have any clearer answers than what I can find in my notes, in Barnes' reader and Gordon's book!
 
Bye for now,
Sarah.
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Lindblom
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Professional translations of Bodvar Bjarki

Heil Sarah

First of all i´d like to thank you for your comments on my translation they clarified many things.But i´m still a little bit confused about this"spyrja at" phrase ; here they have translated it like:"without asking anyone´s permission" in the first translation but in the other one it´s  "asking leave of no one" in my dictionary again spyrja at is translated  "ask for" and you give me "ask about".The old norse text doesn´t say anything about permissions or whatever he could have asked for (=no object).Is the object in this case unnecessary? is this way to use phrases very common??    

see ya

Thomas

 Sarah Bowen <bowensli@...> wrote:

Sæl!
 
I thought you might be interested to see what the professionals make of this text.  The first is by Jesse Byock and the second by Gwyn Jones.
 
Bodvar continued on his way to Hleidargard.  After arriving at the king´s royal residence, he immediately stabled his horse in the stall with the king´s best mounts without asking anyone´s permission.  Then he entered the hall, where there were only a few men.  He sat down near the entrance, and after he had been there for a short time, he heard a noise coming from somewhere in the corner.  Bodvar looked in that direction and saw a man´s hand emerging from a huge pile of bones lying there.  The hand was very black.
 
 
Later Bothvar went on his way to Leire and arrived at the king´s residence.  He stabled his horse alongside the best of the king´s horses, asking leave of no one, and afterwards walked into the hall.  There were few men there.  He took a seat near the door, and when he had been there a short while he heard a kind of scrabbling away out in some corner or other.  Bothvar looked that way and saw how a man´s hand came up out of a huge pile of bones which lay there.  The hand was very black.
 
 
Interesting to see how the professionals do it and how even they come up with slightly different versions, depending on how close to the original text they stayed or how fluid a piece of English they wanted to achieve without compromising the meaning.
 
Any comments?
Bye for now,
 
Sarah.


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