Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Blaðsíða 247
239
That the translator was a clergyman is apparent, if not from his anti-
Catholic attitude, then from his knowledge of Latin, which is obvious
in several ways. Where Latin passages are always provided with a
translation in the Danish Carion, the Icelandic translator frequently
leaves them untranslated. He occasionally uses a Latin term not in the
Danish, e.g. “juxta illud” (f. 54r; cp. 1595, 108r), “Mortuus est” (f.
64r; cp. 1595, f. 123v “døde”), “vel var hann Græcus” (f. 66r; cp. 1595,
f. 130v “Grækisk Spraag forstod hånd ocsaa vel“), “cogn: Canis” (f.
89v; cp. 1595, f. 180r “met det tilnaffn Canis"), “Carolus qvintus” (f.
92v; cp. 1595, f. 188v “Carolus den Femte”). Where the Danish has
“Ti Mend” (f. 46v), the Icelandic has “regimen decem virorum” (f.
22v), and the translator at one place changes one Latin form, “Cur me
mordeas?" (1595, f. 182v), into another: “Cur tu mordes me?” (f.
90v). With regard to Henry IV the Danish cites the words of Solomon
(from Ecclesiasticus 10:16), “Væ det Land / hues Konge er it Barn”
(1595, f. 145v); the Icelandic translator puts this directly into Latin:
“Væ tærræ cujus rex etc” (f. 74r). Similarly, “Kiend dig selff” (1595, f.
31r) is rendered “Nosce te ypsum” (f. 12v). Occasionally the translator
displays the special knowledge that we would expect from an educated
clergyman, as when he adds to an account of Polycarp (1595, f. 82v)
the detail that “hann var skola pillttur Johannes Evangelista” (f. 37v).
The changes indicated above are stylistic, made by the Icelandic
translator without the use of any written source other than the Danish
Carion of 1595. It now remains to point to the material that he has
taken from other sources. This will be given in full detail here, since
the relationships of 11153 are both problematic and interesting.
The very first story told in the Add. 11153 Carion, “Vm Adam og
Seth,” contains this detail:
...ad f>eir hafe smijdad tvær tåblur adra af jårne enn adra af steine, a adra
hafe peir skrifad gudz ord og spådoma og nadar fyrerheited, enn a adra hafe
peir skrifad himin tungla gang, og stiornu list, og hefur suo sijdann vid magt
blifed, (f. 3r-v)
The corresponding passage in 1595 has:
Oc der scriffuis / at Adam oc Seth giorde tuende Taffler / en aff Jern / oc en
anden aff Steen / oc screffue der vdi Guds ord oc Spaadom / at den maatte
holdis ved mact: (f. 9v)