Gripla - 01.01.2002, Page 146

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GRIPLA
B-H: “He is likely to accomplish a lot of work,” said Njál, “but wheth-
er all will be good I don’t know.”
MM-HP: “His work will have vigour enough,” said Njal. “But I’m not
so certain of its value.” (1999: “He will work hard enough,” said
Njál, “but I do not know how well he will work.”)
Cook: “He’ll be a hard worker, sure enough,” said Njal, “but I don’t
know whether he’ll be a good worker.”
Dasent and Cook keep something of the effect, though less concisely, by op-
posing “great / hard worker” with “good worker”. B-H ignore the sound pat-
tem, and MM-HP replace it, reasonably enough, with an alliterating contrast,
“vigour” vs. “[no] value”.
Symploce (repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning, and another at the
end, of successive clauses):
hann [Helgi Njálsson] varfríðr maðr sýnum ok hærðr vel; hann var
sterkr maðr ok vígr vel; hann var vitr maðr ok stilltr vel. (25.70-1)
Dasent: He too was fair of face and had fine hair. He was a strong man
and well-skilled in arms. He was a man of sense and knew well
how to behave.
B-H: He was a man of handsome appearance with a fme head of hair.
He was strong and well skilled in arms, sensible and even-tem-
pered.
MM-HP: He too (omitted in 1999) was a handsome man, with a fine
head of hair. He was strong and skilful with arms, intelligent and
even-tempered.
Cook: He was a handsome man with a good head of hair; he was
strong and a good fighter, clever and even-tempered.
Although the task is easy enough, only Dasent proves worthy here. The others
ignore the device and combine the second and third clauses into a single
clause with a series of adjectives.
In defining and advocating a rather conservative mode of translation, and
moving the discussion into the areas of syntax and rhetoric (understatement)
and phonology, these remarks have been a bit on the preachy side. My as-