|
THat's very good - it is almost like the copy I sent forward sometime this morning ,
which I had copied up from the Complete Sagas of the Icelanders - one thing is
certainly clear my message was not received for it has not been sent out -
I have never unsubscribed so how might this happen, can Haukur or Llama Nom throw
light upon it - I have been using a gmail address would it be better to use a Yahoo, or
does it not officially matter
Kveðja
Patricia
Thank you Brian - i cannot fault your translation but I took care to copy the
item from the CSOI because I was not sure of that !!
-------Original Message-------
From: Brian M. Scott
Date: 07/04/2009 20:13:49
To: AThompson
Subject: Re[2]: [norse_course] Njall 135 beginning / Alan's Translation At 7:10:11 AM on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, AThompson wrote:
Gleymdi þú vísa korti þínu? <g>
It's been *long* time since I tried one of these bloody
things, but this one seems to have fairly normal syntax,
at least compared with the verbal jigsaw puzzles in 'Gisla
saga', so I'll take a stab at it.
[...]
CV s.v. <hjálmr> includes <hjálmskass> in a list of <hjálm->
terms for weapons, but it took me a while to track down
<skass>: it's apparently a pronunciation spelling of <skars>
'a monster, ogress, giantess', under which CV has
<hjálmskars> 'helm-ogre', meaning 'an axe'. According to
CV, the gender is uncertain, which would suggest that
<hjálmskassa> is a genitive plural. <Hvessir> is a nomen
agentis from <hvessa> 'to whet': 'whetter, one who whets'.
Thus, <hjálmskassa hvessir> is 'axes' whetter, whetter of
axes' (= warrior).
According to the Lexicon Poeticum, <herðimeiðr> is indeed
from a poetic <herðir> 'sword', so 'sword-pole, sword-tree'
(= warrior) is right.
out from alder's sweat (= smoke from the timbers)
<Húsa> is a genitive plural, and so far as I can see, the
only candidate to be its head noun is <sveita>: 'unwillingly
out from the smoke of the timbers of Njál's farm buildings'.
<Gunnr> (literally 'war, battle') is the name of a valkyrie.
According to Lex. Poet., the kenning is <eld-Gunnar
óðrunnar>, which it expands to <Gunnar elds óðrunnar>; here
<eldr> is apparently a kenning for 'sword', and <runnr>,
normally 'bush, grove', is 'tree' (= man, warrior). <Óðr>
is 'furious, raging', so the whole thing is '(the) sword's
raging trees' = 'warriors', and these two lines are 'when
(the) warriors burned inside there'.
Trying for a translation that is as literal as possible
while still making some sense in English, I get something
like this:
The whetter of axes went,
the sword-tree, for wrath
out from the alders' sweat
of Njál's farm buildings, unwillingly,
when inside Gunnr's fire's
raging trees burned there.
Going strictly for the sense:
In a rage the warrior (= Kári) unwillingly went out from
the smoke of the burning timbers of Njál's farm buildings
while warriors burned inside.
<Nemi> is a 3rd person present subjunctive, here expressing
a wish. <Mín> is a nominative or accusative neuter plural,
which makes sense only if it modifies <mál>, which is then
plural: 'May men hear/understand my words as I relate ...'.
I don't see how <tínum> can be anything but the 1st
person plural present indicative of <tína> 'to gather, to
pick; to present in series, to enumerate; to recount', and
<harmsakir> must be its object and hence an accusative
plural. (I think, by the way, that despite its literal
compositional sense, in this context it's simply 'griefs,
sorrows'.) I'd be much happier if it were <tíni>, 1st
person singular, making it 'I recount', but as it stands, my
best guess is 'May men hear/understand my words as I relate
(them): we recount (our) griefs', where 'we' is perhaps Kári
and his words.
Brian
------------------------------------
A Norse funny farm, overrun by smart people.
Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
To escape from this funny farm try rattling off an e-mail to:
norse_course-unsubscribe@...! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
| ||
|
|