Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Page 117
Chapter 4
THE NORSE TRANSLATOR AT WORK
I
Aims and methods
After we have established a critical text of the saga, or at least the
criteria on which such a text must be based, the next step must be to
attempt to decide how the translator worked, and by which principles, if
any, he was guided in his task. It is hoped that a close examination of the
text of branch VIII, compared with the text of all the French versions of
the Chanson de Roland, will make it possible to determine, not only how
much the translator understood of his French source, but also, and that is
really more important, how much liberty he allowed himself in his render-
ing of the French text.
The mere faet that it is possible to divide the Kms text into lines that
correspond to the verses of the French poem proves that the Norse version
is a translation rather than an adaptation. On the other hånd the faet that
some of these lines consist of only one or two words, while others are
longer than the French verses, shows that the translation is not accurate
in the modern sense. The most important difference between the saga and
the chanson de geste is naturally that one is in prose, the other in verse.
To translate an epic poem into a foreign language must always be a for-
midable task, and it is made more difficult when there is a difference both
between the linguistic structure of the two languages and in the literary
traditions and poetic conventions. To a Scandinavian of the 13th century,
the task of translating a chanson de geste must have been just as difficult
as for a modern scholar to translate the Iliad. But the modern reader who
is likely to read the Iliad in translation will at least know something about
the background of the Greek poem, and he will have read a little about
Greek literature before beginning to read a full translation of an epic
poem. The 13th century translator wrote for a public completely un-
acquainted with any foreign literature of a secular nature, and there were
no dictionaries or general handbooks to help either the public or the trans-