Sael LN,
As I have already said - happy to help - my
Translations are from Iceland called the complete Sagas of the Icelanders
and the people who work on it are many and various,
I keep this precious set of Five beautifully
bound volumes on the top shelf of my bookcase in a slip case of their own, so
that I shall not be tempted to use them when translating, as I feel that would
be counter-productive. When you read them the translator's name appears along of
the Title.
I take great care of my books, not merely because
they are expensive, and I bought them - and many others in a fit of total
self-indulgence, but I have the same respect for the battered old Latin
Dictionary I use, and I'm afraid I never Lend
Bless
Patricia
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2005 4:32
AM
Subject: [norse_course] Honum var allt
illa gefit, er honum var sjálfrátt.
Got it! Attention all: I was wrong about the
second part of this.
But the good news is, I´ve found the key!
(Yes, like Loki with the
Æsir, I get you into trouble and get you out of
it...) The Rosette
Stone turns out to be a descrition of Queen
Kormlöð in ch. 154 of
Njáls saga.
Hon var allra kvenna fegrst ok
bezt at sér orðin um þat allt er
henni var ósjálfrátt en þat er mál manna
at henni hafi allt verit
illa gefit þat er henni var
sjálfrátt.
Hermann Pálsson and Magnús Magnússon translate:
"she
was endowed with great beauty and all those attributes which
were outside
her own control, but it is said that in all the
characteristics for which
she herself was responsible, she was
utterly wicked."
This sounds
slightly odd as if there´s something missing to tell us
how she was with
regard to all the attributes outside her control,
but Dasent
obliges:
"she was the fairest of all women, and best gifted in
everything
that was not in her own power, but it was the talk of men that
she
did all things ill over which she had any power."
Thanks for
locating those other sagas, Patricia. If you want to
have a go at
tracking down the exact quote, type "illa gefið" into
Google and check the
first couple of hits. I don´t know if your
translations have the
same chapter numbering as these online texts
(if not, look out for a bit
where Halli goes to claim compensation
for his brother Einarr from a
certain ill-given jarl, also called
Einarr). By the way, is your
Sarcastic Halli taken from they
Flateyjarbók version? There´s
another version in Morkinskinna, you
see, which I think doesn´t have the
phrase we´re interested in.
LN