Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Side 248

Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Side 248
246 Marianne Kalinke villde af latha sina villv” (II, 290:22-23). This kind of thoughtless transferral of Low German expressions into Icelandic occasionally generates mistrans- lations. For example, in the legend of Heinrich and Kunegunde the idiomatic expression “gy hebben mynen willen” (lix,c) - which means so much as “I am favorably disposed to you” - was transferred word for word into Icelandic - ”af mier hafit þier ydvarn vilia” (I, 55:6-7) - thereby assuming a different meaning, however, from that intended in the source. Not all transfers of words from one language into another are as transparent; most become evident only upon comparison of the two texts, for example, a mistranslation in the legend of St. Rochus, which can only be recognized as such if the Low German text is at hand. In the Passionael we read that the saint “hadde ok medelidinghe mit den armen elenden seken minschen” (Cxlix,a). A similar sentence presumably was the basis of the Icelandic “hann bar og mikit mothlæthe j sinv hiartta vegna fathakra manna og vthlendra” (II, 152:14). On the surface there is nothing wrong with the Icelandic; it makes sense. The problem is that in Middle Low German the word elend means ‘miserable’, ‘unhappy’, or ‘foreign’, when it stands alone, but in the idiomatic expression elende seken, it refers to lepers. Rochus is therefore not helping poor foreigners but rather poor lepers.16 The preceding shows the indebtedness of Reykjahólabók to its Low German source(s). A discussion of Low German loans in the Icelandic legendary can be somewhat misleading, however, since the evidence put forth is ipso facto selective. A comparative reading of Reykjahólabók and the Passionael shows a wide variation in the indebtedness of the former to the latter not only in regard to language but also content, ranging from agreement in nearly every word for the space of several lines to several pages of Icelandic text that has no counterpart in the Passionael. This very fluctuation - together with the express assumption that the Passionael was the source of Reykjahólabók - led to Widding’s and Bekker-Nielsen’s classification. Throughout Reykjahólabók there is evidence of Low German derivation even when there is no corresponding matter in the Passionael. What may be considered interference from a foreign source is evident, for example, in expressions of time. In the legend of St. Christopher we read that something occurred “sem klvckan mvndi vera aa millvm .x. xi.” That the translator was aware of the foreign provenance of the expression is attested by the following supplementary information - ”en þat er aa vora thavlv nærre hadeige” (I, 282:23-24). Similar evidence of an awareness of the cultural dissimilarity in reckoning time occurs twice in the legend of St. George; 16 According to Karl Schiller and August Líibben, Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (1875; rpt. Vaduz: Sándig, 1986), “unter ellende seken [werden] gewöhnlich die miselseken (die Aussátzigen) verstanden... entweder weil sie abgesondert von den ubrigen Kranken gehalten werden, oder weil ihr Ubel stinkend ist.”
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