At 10:19:05 AM on Monday, March 15, 2010, Fred and Grace
Hatton wrote:
Note that because the story is being posted in a blog, it's
in reverse order, with the newest material at the top: what
follows below is actually the beginning of Chapter 5. The
original uses o-ogonek, which came through as plain <o>;
I've changed that to <ö> below.
> Nú er þar til máls at taka, er þeir Víga-Óbívan ok Anakinn
> eru, at þeir riðu austr til Hornafjarðar.
> Now it is time to take up the story where Slayer-Obiwan
> and Anakin are, that they rode east to Horn Firths.
> Fylgðu Víga-Óbívani flestir allir þingmenn hans.
> Nearly? all his thingmen followed Slayer Obiwan.
Yes, <flestir allir> is 'almost all, nearly all'; see Zoëga
s.v. <fleiri>.
> Fluttu þeir þá austr vöru sína ok önnur föng ok fargögn,
> þau er þeir skyldu hafa með sér.
> Then they carried their wares east and other baggage and
> provisions, those which they should have with them.
> Síðan bjoggu þeir skip sitt.
> Afterwards they readied their ship.
> Var Víga-Óbívan við skip, þar til er búit var.
> Slayer Obiwan stayed with the ship until (it) was ready.
> En þegar er byr gaf, létu þeir í haf.
> And as soon as a favorable breeze arose, they put out to
> sea.
> Höfðu þeir langa útivist ok veðráttu illa; fóru þeir
> hundvillir.
> They had a long time at sea and the weather was bad, they
> went quite astray.
Since <veðrátta> '(state of) the weather' is a noun, a more
literal translation would be 'They had a long time at sea
and bad weather'. As a matter of possible interest,
<hundvillr> has nothing to do with hounds: <hund-> is an
intensifying prefix, and <villr> 'wild; errant' is cognate
with English <wild>.
> Þat var einu hverju sinni, at þeir fengu áföll stór þrjú
> nökkur, ok sagði Víga-Óbívan þá, at þeir væri nær löndum
> ok þetta væri grunnföll.
> It was at one certain time, that they suffered some three
> great waves, and Viga Obiwan said then that they were near
> land and these were breakers.
> Þoka var á mikil, en veðrit óx, svá at gerði
> at þeim hríð mikla.
> A heavy fog was over (them) and the weather grows worse,
> so that they were overtaken by a storm.
<Óx> is past tense; present tense would be <vex>. <Hríð
mikla> is 'a great storm, a violent storm'.
> Fundu þeir eigi, fyrr en þá keyrði á land upp um nótt, ok
> varð þar mannbjörg, en skip brotnaði allt í spán, en fé
> máttu þeir ekki bjarga.
> They did not notice (it) before they were driven up on
> land during the night, and all hands were saved, but the
> ship broke up in splinters, and they were not able to save
> the valuables.
> Urðu þeir at leita sér verma.
> They were obliged to seek to warm themselves.
> En um daginn eptir gengu þeir upp á hæð nökkura.
> And during the next day they went up on some hill.
> Var þá veðr gott.
> There the weather was good.
'Then', not 'there'.
> Víga-Óbívan spurði, ef þeir menn kenndi land þetta, er
> farit höfðu áðr.
> Slayer Obiwan asked if those men recognized this land, who
> had gone before.
> Tveir váru menn, þeir er kenndu landit ok sögðu þá vera
> komna við Írland í Þíðborg.
> Two men were (there), they who recognized the land and
> said them to have arrived in Ireland in Theed.
> "Fá máttu vér betri landtöku," segir Víga-Óbívan, "því at
> Paðéma in væna Rúvísdóttir ræðr hér.
> "We could (have) got a better landfall" says Slayer Obiwan
> "because Padme the beautiful daughter of Ruvi? rules here.
Google tells me that her father's name is <Ruwee>, so I
suppose that <Rúví> is the nominative of the ON version.
> Við henni ok Falfaðni er þat ekki mart."
> With her and Falfad?, that is not much??
The nominative is <Falfaðinn>, representing 'Palpatine' in
the original. This appears to be an instance of <mar(g)t>
'friendly, communicative' (Zoëga s.v. <margr> (3)): 'It is
not friendly with her and F.', i.e., 'She and F. don't are
on bad terms with each other'.
> Leituðu þeir sér leynis ok reyttu á sik mosa ok lágu þar
> nökkura stund ok eigi langa, áðr Víga-Óbívan mælti: "Ekki
> skulu vér hér lengr liggja, svá at landsmenn verði við þat
> varir."
> They searched for concealment for themselves and picked
> moss and lay there for some time and not long before
> Slayer Obiwan spoke, "We shall not lie here longer, so
> that (the) countrymen become aware of it."
They didn't just pick moss: they picked it <á sik> 'on
themselves', meaning that they covered themselves with it.
<Skulu> here has more nearly the sense 'ought', or even
'must': 'We ought not' or 'We must not'. <Landsmenn> is
probably best translated 'inhabitants', or perhaps
'natives'.
> Stóðu þeir upp síðan ok gerðu ráð sitt.
> They stood up afterwards and formed a plan.
> Víga-Óbívan mælti: "Ganga skulu vér á vald
> dróttningarinnar; gerir oss ekki annat, því at dróttning
> hefir at líku líf várt, ef hon vill eptir því leita."
> Slayer Obiwan spoke, "We shall surrender to the power of
> the Queen, nothing else avails us, because the Queen has
> our life all the same, if she wishes to seek after it."
<Líf> can be either singular or plural; I'd translate it
with the plural -- 'our lives' -- despite the singular
<því> in the final clause. (The usage here just doesn't
mesh well with English.)
> Ganga þeir þá allir í braut þaðan.
> Then they all go away from there.
> Víga-Óbívan mælti, at þær skyldu engum manni segja
> tíðendin eða frá ferðum sinni, fyrr en hann segði
> dróttningu.
> Slayer Obiwan spoke, that they should tell no man the news
> or of their journey, before he told the Queen.
'Said' fits better than 'spoke', given the following clause.
Did you notice that this is virtually word for word the
first part of Chapter 153 of Njála, with Víga-Óbívan taking
the place of Flosi?
Brian