Gripla - 01.01.2000, Page 94

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GRIPLA
Scholars have attempted to ascertain the stylistic significance of the word
einn, used as an indefínite article (Jónas Kristjánsson 1972:282-285). Such
usage is not in evidence here; the word appears only twice in Judith, once
(9rl9) as a straightforward translation of una, and once preceding a noun with
an adjective, ‘einn leyniligan kofa’ (7vl7—18). The word is much more prom-
inent in many of the thirteenth-century translations. As Peter Hallberg has
pointed out, it is doubtful whether high frequency of the word in a text is a
proof of its relatively late date — Hallberg himself prefers to interpret it as a
characteristic of the translator (1977:239). Bearing that in mind, one could
still argue with some caution that the absence of this usage speaks for an early
dating rather than a late one. einn does occur sporadically in early texts where
it appears variously before or after the noun it accompanies. The word is
more frequent in younger texts and it stands there, as a rule, before the noun.
The use of the conjunction unz is on the other hand rare in texts after 1300
(Widding 1961:29). The word occurs four times in Judith (6r6, 6r26, 7v33,
8v4) which indicates that the translation is a thirteenth-century work rather
than a later one. A similar indication is given by the occurrence of the prepo-
sition o/(6vl0) which was gradually superceded by um in the course of the
thirteenth century (Foote 1955).
The vocabulary is interesting in many respects. A good deal of it is recog-
nisable from other translations, both of religious texts but also of romances
and other texts of chivalric nature (Alexanders saga, Karlamagnús saga). It is
perhaps not surprising that the vocabulary in Judith seems to show the great-
est affinity to Stjóm. This is partly, of course, due to the similar nature of the
originals (all are books of the Bible), but often the translators of these works
also seem to have resorted to the same verbal solutions and they frequently
show preference for the same words. An example of this might be the word
fulltingjari (7r23 for ‘defensor’). Stjóm and 764 contain various examples of
the related words fulltingja (764:7v38 for ‘subvenio’) and fulltingr/Jullting(i)
(764:7r30, 7vl3, 7v23, 8v31 for ‘auxilium’, ‘adiutorium’) and these are also
found in the Icelandic Homily Book whereas fulltingjari does not occur in
early homilies (Larsson 1891:98). The Amamagnæan Dictionary, ONP, has
12 examples offulltingjari, half of them from Stjóm where it is used to trans-
late the words ‘adiutor’/‘adiutorium’ (5) and ‘auxiliator’ (l).8 Other verbs
8 Thc other examples in the ONP are from Maríu saga, Karlamagnús saga and Vitae patrum. It
is conceivable that fulltingjan was used as the general word for ‘helper’ (adiutor, auxiliator)
whereas hjálpari was reserved for salvator, cf. Larsson 1891:148. hjáipari occurs in later
texts in the more general meaning, e.g. in Barl., Mich. and Flat., cf. Fritzner 1886:828.1 am
grateful to Veturliði Óskarsson, Uppsala, and Þorbjörg Helgadóttir, Copenhagen, for their
assistance in collecting the examples from ONP.