SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

266 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
times when a close translation can be quaint or clumsy, as on
p. 42, "Now I am going to change men in bed with you" (NitmUn
ek ski-pta via pik monnum i rekkjunni), or fail to convey the
idiomatic sense, as on p. 3, "Skeggi spoke to Thorbjorn of marriage
ties" (where mcela til implies rather "sued for"), and p. 50, "You
can see for yourself" (where Mtuiu ok apat Uta means rather "You
may also take this into consideration"). But it is not often that
the sense suffers like this from a too narrowly verbal closeness,
and it is pleasing to find how much of the style of the original comes
through. In the Saga-Book Professor Johnston had said that the
patience and hard work that close translating requires are likely
to generate life. Though it may be doubted that they would do
this of their own accord, they have indeed generated life here,
where they have been used in the service of a very real and unselfregarding
enthusiasm for the work being translated.
The standard of accuracy in the translation generally is high,
though there are a few careless errors, e.g. magr translated as
"kinsman" (p. 28). ("Thorgrim and Thorkell had prospered on
their voyage as well", on p. 10, for Hefir peim ok gatt til fjar oroit,
which at first sight seems a similar example of carelessness, may be
merely unnecessary explanatory expansion.) There are also
some examples of failure to bring out the full meaning, and of
distortions which, however slight in themselves, may have the
effect of blurring the precision of the original or destroying the
nuances. For example, to translate (hann) vikr sva reu) sinni at
hann kemsk a bak peim Berki "(he) takes a way that brings him up
behind Bjork and the others" is to miss the explicitness of the
verb vikr ("he wheels round as he rides so as to come up
behind ."). Similarly on p. I I, Asgerd's question to Aud 'What
will you do?' hardly does justice in the context to the saga's
Huert orrmai muntu taka (""Vhat way out will you take?").
Precision should apply also to word-order where the context
demands it. On p. 40 en pei« eru uppi Ii berginu Ingjaldr ok
jrmllinn is translated "for Ingald and his thrall have taken their
stand on the crag" But the context demands something nearer
to the word-order of the Icelandic: Bark and his men have seen
the men on the crag and assumed that one of them is Gisli ­
"They go up after them and think that everything is going their
way, but those up on the crag are Ingjald and the thrall" An
example of how even a very slight lack of precision may obscure
a nuance of style occurs in Thorkell's words on p. 12, "But this is
worse than illness" : the impersonal form of the original expression,
en sottum uerra er po ("But there are worse things than sickness"),
is more in keeping with the somewhat cryptic attitude that