Gripla - 01.01.2002, Page 128

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GRIPLA
before, golden fields and new-mown meadows. I am going back
home. I am not going anywhere.”)
Cook: “Lovely is the hillside — never has it seemed so lovely to me as
now, with its pale fields and mown meadows, and I will ride back
home and not leave.”
Many comments could be made on this Icelandic sentence and its four trans-
lations, but our present concem is the syntax, where the two phrase-linking
oks create a mn-on effect, as though in Gunnarr’s mind the view of Hlíðarendi
overflows into his decision to retum home and then into the negative re-asser-
tion of this decision, all in one continuous outpouring. The effect, like all such
“ok — ok — ok” effects, deserves imitating.
8. Avoiding the present participle
The participial phrase, introduced by the present participle, is unknown in
Njáls saga and in most of the family sagas, though quite common in the ridd-
arasögur, for example. In Modem English it is an economical way to express
simultaneity of action, by creating a kind of truncated subordinate clause. As
churlish as it may seem to ban from saga translations such a common and nat-
ural device, I believe the attempt is worthwhile, as a further way of preserving
the paratactic style.
Þeir [Kári and Bjqrn hvíti] riðu þá um daginn austr á fjallfyrir norðan
jQkul ok riðu aldri almannaveg ok ofan í Skaptártungu okfyrir ofan
bœi alla til Skaptár ok leiddu liesta sína í dœli nQkkura, en þeir váru á
njósn ok hQfðu svá búit um sik, at eigi mátti sjá þá. (150.429)
Dasent: Now they rode that day east on the fell to the north of the Jok-
ul, but never on the highway, and so down into Skaptartongue,
and above all the homesteads to Skaptarwater, and led their
horses into a dell, but they themselves were on the look-out, and
had so placed themselves that they could not be seen.
B-H: That same day they rode east into the mountains, but never along
the usual route, down into the region of the Skaptá River Junction,
skirting the upper boundaries of all farms till they got to the Skaptá
River. They led their horses into a depression, but they remained