medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Learned Ones,
My friend has now given me a much more precise description of his problem, see below.
An additional question: I presume there is not, actually, any saint called "Spons"?
Any elucidation that anyone can supply will be greatly appreciated!
As it happens, the problem I am dealing with has to do with David
Lindsay's "Monarche", mentioned in Helen Brown's letter. This is the
problem:
1. Lindsay's poem, published in 1554, in Scottish, later came out in a
full and quite close Danish translation, Copenhagen 1591, by Jacob Madsen.
2. According to the 1591 title page, Jacob Madsen based his translation on
a Latin version made by a Scot named Andrew Robertson. There is no reason
to doubt this, since AR was living and working at the Univ. of Copenhagen.
Besides, an ordinary Dane would have had trouble understanding Lindsay's
Scottish. We do not have Robertson's Latin version, which probably existed
only in a manuscript prepared for Madsen.
3. The Danish version of 1591 was later the principle source for an
Icelandic universal history, named "Einvaldsodur" (Poem on Monarch),
written in 1658 by an Icelandic priest named Gudmundur Erlendsson. This
poem was never printed, though it was popular - I am preparing an edition
based on all of the extant 70 plus manuscripts.
4. So we are dealing with four layers: (a) Lindsay's Scottish, (b)
Robertson's Latin, (c) Madsen's Danish, (d) Gudmundur's Icelandic.
5. Lines 2305 and 2382 of the Scottish mention "Sanct Bryde" (i.e. Saint
Bridget of Ireland).
6. In the Danish of 1591 these appear as "S. Spons", and this is carried
over into the Icelandic poem.
7. It seems natural to assume that Spons or Sponsa appeared first in
Robertson's Latin version, from which it was carried over into the Danish.
8. The problem is simply, WHY WOULD ROBERTSON DO THIS? The result, as
could be expected, was to mislead Jacob Madsen. There is an obvious
bilingual pun ("Bryde" - "bride" - "sponsa" - "Sponsa"), but who needs a
pun or a translation at this point? The other saints which came from
Lindsay into the Icelandic poem have survived intact, i.e. Robertson
simply reproduced them, which is what translators do anyway with proper
names. Proper nouns are not translatable, but simply adapted (Cendrillon /
Cinderella / Cenerentola), unless there is an accepted equivalence (Lac
Leman / Lake Genevfa). Why did Robertson break the rule in this case?
- - - -
That is the end of what you might send to your group. For your information
I attach the current version of my little article (remember: TOP SECRET!
Robert
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