Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1961, Page 148

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RITFREGNIR
ordinary degree; and hence that a translation obliterating these charac-
teristics altogether would give an utterly false idea of that remarkable
genre.
What Professor Hollander seems to have failed to realize is the simple fact
that in scaldic poetry the free word order was used to serve various functions.
It often helped the poet to achieve a double meaning, and since the interpreta-
tion was left to the audience the first aural effects would often be different from
the meaning which could be read into a fully analyzed stanza. In some extant
scaldic stanzas the words can in fact be arranged in more than one way, giving
different meaning each time, and there can be little doubt that this was deli-
berate. In Ilollander’s translations, on the other hand, the tangled word order
can only confuse the reader and make what is bad verse even less attractive. His
statement ahout the archaic vocahulary of scaldic poetry is of course correct.
hut it can hardly justify the use of archaic and obsolete expressions in a modern
translation. The archaic vocabulary of scaldic poetry was a living part of the
tradition, even though its use was restricted.
In his Introduction Professor Hollander rightly praises the verses attributed
to Bjyrn (p. xix): “Like himself they evince of an outgoing, exuberant, robust
temperament and have lyrical quality of a high order.” Some scholars who are
in the fortunate position of being able to read BjQrn’s poetry in the original will
undouhtedly concur, but somehow the translator has succeeded in concealing
the very qualities for which he praises it. In the translation the unfortunate poet
refers to his lady-Iove by a string of lifeless, sexless and uncomplimentary
phrases: ‘ash-of-gold’, ‘necklace-Njorun’, ‘head-dress-Hlín’, ‘the keeper-of liead-
dresses’, ‘Hh'n-of-hoarded-armrings’, etc. In one stanza the woman seems to be
in the millinery trade, but in the next she finds herself in the compromising
company of hoarded armrings.
In spite of the several faults which stain this handsomely printed volume it is
a welcome addition to the corpus of English saga-translations.
HEllMANN rÁLSSON
Department oj English Language
and General Linguistics,
University of Edinburgh,
Edinburgh.