Gripla - 20.12.2005, Síða 16

GRIPLA14
and when the devils predict great loss of life in both armies, the Latin version
tells us that the apostles laughed hysterically: „Tunc apostoli ex abundanti
lætitia in risum excitati sunt“ (Mombritius II:534.49-50). The Icelandic trans-
lator, however, as Collings points out, chooses to let his characters react more
quietly and with more dignity, in keeping with their saga’s thematic focus on
humility and poverty, when he has them merely ‘smile’ at the devils’ and
idolaters’ naïveté: „fia toku postolar gu›s at brosa [...]“ (Post.:780.7). The
mockery that the Latin text would have us believe the apostles used against
the devils is in fact transferred by the Icelandic translator to the sacrificial bis-
hops, who do not subsequently merely laugh at the apostles („[...] pontifices
risum leuauerunt,“ Mombritius II:535.1-2), but instead, jeer at them („fia
hlogu blotmenn at fleim,“ Post.:780.15-16).11
Similar ‘sensitivity’ or care on the part of the Icelandic translators is found
throughout the earliest translated hagiographical texts in Iceland, and as more
examples are uncovered the more apparent become the translators’ skills at
reproducing or modifying Latin grammar and rhetoric, as well as their abilities
in reshaping and streamlining narratives in order to accentuate themes: that is,
they appear to have worked with a definite sense of purpose, going far beyond
slavishly reproducing texts or even adapting them ‘per sensum’.12 An almost
thoroughly uninvestigated question concerns to what extent the reproduction
and/or modification of varying levels of rhetorical style in the Icelandic trans-
11 See Collings 1969:192-193. Later in the the narrative, when Xerxes builds a church in the
apostles’ honor, the Pseudo-Abdias text spends some time giving precise architectural details,
which the Icelandic version omits. This may have been done, as is done so often elsewhere in
the Icelandic translations of Pseudo-Abdias, to avoid unnecessary technicalities (as for in-
stance details of the sorcerers’ Manichean doctrine are omitted), but it is also likely that the
omission is the result of what Collings has called the translator’s pronounced sensitivity to
the saga’s context and themes: overt attention to the grandiosity of the church would be dir-
ectly counter to the apostles’ lessons concerning poverty and the worthlessness of idols. Cp.
Post.:789.11-13: „[...] ok let flar gora kirkiu til dyr›ar fleim ok skrin or silfri at likomum
fleira. En su kirkia var .iiii. vetr i giπr›, en er hon var algor, var hon vig› at iamleng›ardegi
pislar fleira,“ with Mombritius II:539.46-52: „[...] in qua instruxit basilicam in octogeno eiclo
angulorum: ut octogenorum pedum numerus numeretur per gyrum: In altum antem pedum
centum uiginti. Omnia ex quadratis marmoribus simmaticis extruxit [...]“ etc.
12 As was suggested by Fredrik Paasche 1957:292. See Collings 1969:140 for further com-
mentary on the earlier scholarly reception of Old Norse hagiographical literature.
Existing studies of Icelandic hagiography have taken pains to show how many Icelandic
hagiographical texts are derived from a wide variety of sources, and this evidence alone
(besides the oftentimes remarkable adaptations made by the translators/compilers) should be
enough to refute any attitude that study of Icelandic hagiography inevitably results in con-
clusions that are more pertinent to the Icelandic texts’ Latin sources. Such an attitude simply