medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Perhaps it was either an honest mistake of a person
(St. Bride) for a concept (holy bride=holy church) or
an attempt to enlarge the image to include both the
monastic and the church-at-large?
Stephen
--- "Cormack, Margaret Jean" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> 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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