um hagi þína

Hi Sarah, and many thanks.

I've emailed Michael Barnes to confirm this (he's wonderfully helpful), but surely UM can only take the accusative, and hagr has to be plural to mean NATURE.

Therefore it must be accusative plural; in Modern Icelandic at least, hagr has acc. plural in -i - this does happen with some masculines.

Cheers,

Simon

In a message dated 15/07/03 12:06:06 GMT Daylight Time, bowensli@... writes:

Subj:Re: [norse_course] TRANSLATION ENCLOSED
Date:15/07/03 12:06:06 GMT Daylight Time
From:bowensli@...
Reply-to:norse_course@yahoogroups.com
To:norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent from the Internet

Sæll Simon!

I hope the move went well. Apologies for the delay in getting back to you - my only excuse is this weather. I only function in temperatures up to 20 C, by 25 C I´m positively wilting and by 30+ C I have melted! What a wimp!

Anyway, to your translation. You seemed to get it all virtually. Just one or two tricky bits and I'm not sure whether my explanations will be totally satisfactory. Perhaps someone else can shed more light for us?

The first one was"Máttu sjá at engi er allfúss til annarra".
This is the explanation I gave to Grace. Does this make enough sense?
"allfúss" is tricky because it can mean "very eager" but I think it is the use of "til annarra" which shifts the meaning slightly to "more eager".   "annarra" is the masculine,
genitive, plural form of annarr. "til" invariably sends adjectives and nouns into the genitive form. So, put together we get...
Can't you see that no-one is more eager than another? (or than any other).

A teeny error in -Konungr maelti, "Ekki veit ek hvaðan þessi hreysti er at þér komin,"
Here you translated "hvaðan" with 'when'. I think it should be 'where from'

Ha! This is not so straightforward is it?!! Hvat má vita, nema fleira hafi skipzk um hagi þína en sjá þykkir?
Again, this is what I said to Grace. (Not sure if my own explanations entirely satisfy me, but...)
You came a bit unstuck here, so I'll analyse the grammar for you word for
word and maybe that will help...
hvat - interrogative pronoun, accusative singular neuter
          form from "hverr"
má   - verb, 3rd person singular form from "mega"
vita - verb, infinitive form

i.e. "who may know,"

nema - conjunction
fleiri   - comparative adjective, "more"
hafi   - verb, 3rd per sing subjunctive from from "hafa"
skipsk - verb, past participle from "skipask".
um      - preposition, governing the dative this time
hagi    - noun, masculine singular dative form from "hagr"
þína   - possessive pronoun. Now I think I must have
            stopped taking notes here because I don´t have
           an explanation for why "þína" is in this form -
           which could either be fem acc sing or masc acc
           plur! Whereas we would expect a form to agree
           with "hagi"! CAN ANYONE SHED ANY
           LIGHT ON THIS PLEASE?!
en     - conjuntion
sjá    - demonstrative pronoun, nominative masc sing form
          (same as þessi)
þykkir - verb, 3rd pers sing present from "þykkja"

i.e. ... except that more has changed about your nature than this seems (or, than seems evident.)

another teeny error...En faestir menn þykkjask þik kenna, at þú sér inn sami maðr
You've very nearly got this right. "kenna" can also mean
"recognise". "sér" here is the subjuntive form of "vera" (easily confused with the indicative of sjá!) "inn" is the free standing definite article. I think the sense that the subjunctive "sér" conveys can best be expressed in
English by putting the uncertainty in the main clause verb... e.g. but few men would recognise you as the same man
literally, it reads
but few men think to recognise you that you be the same man.

another teeny one but it does affect the overall meaning...en þat þykki mér þó þitt verk frægiligast
Here þitt verk is in the singular so I think we should say something along the lines of
but nevertheless it seems to be your most honourable
feat...

ah! another tricky bit!ok óvaenligr þótti til mikillar giptu
"óvænligr" is an adjective modifying "Hottr" in the previous clause and it means unpromising. So unpromising
Hott is the subject of the verb þótti, which can mean to seem or to be thought. "mikillar giptu" (much good luck) is in the genitive form because of the preposition "til". So put altogether, you get (literally)
and unpromising Hott was not thought much good luck
or
and he did not seem to promise much good luck.

Hope this helps! If you, or anyone else still has any niggling doubts that haven't been answered within the group, post them up and I will ask my lecturer via email and let you all know!

Bye for now,
Sarah.

----- Original Message -----
From: simonfittonbrown@...
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 6:04 PM
Subject: [norse_course] TRANSLATION ENCLOSED

Hi Sarah,

Many thanks for the help with the previous one, and sorry this one's late - we've been very busy with the move (to Godalming) recently.

There were a couple of things I wasn't too sure of here, by the way.

Hrafnkel sounds great, incidentally.

Cheers,

Simon

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