Since 2010 I have been researching the cult of saints, and since 2011 I have been doing translation work of texts pertaining to saints, for the most part liturgical texts but also saints' lives. In the course of this research, most of my secondary literature, and most of the translated saints' lives I have read, have been in English, in great part because I have worked extensively on material from medieval England. Increasingly, however, I have become dissatisfied with how certain key terms pertaining to the cult of saints have been rendered into English, and I have often found - particularly in older scholarship - that the Latin terms have been inaccurately translated. Frequently, this inaccuracy owes to the fact that many Latin terms have become part of the standard English language, but have had their meaning altered in the course of the centuries. One particularly problematic word here is the Latin "virtus", which can be found in English as "virtue". But what does "virtue" actually mean, and what does it signify in the context of the cult of saints? Many translators of saints' lives from Latin into English tend to merely render "virtus" as "virtue" without adding any further nuance to the issue. This is highly unfortunate, given that both the Latin and the English words have several different meanings. Consequently, to translate "virtus" as "virtue" is not really a translation, because the meaning of the Latin term depends so very much on the context of the work, the passage, and indeed the sentence. In this blogpost, I wish to address one single instance of such a failed translation in order to demonstrate my point, and the need for careful consideration when choosing how to render "virtus" in modern English. This blogpost touches on merely one case, and I might address others later on.
The inspiration for this blogpost came from listening to the chant Orientis partibus is a song performed at the cathedral of Beauvais in the thirteenth century. The song was part of the liturgical ritual of the mass on January 14, a feast that commemorates the flight into Egypt, and which had elements of the feast of fools embedded into it, such as the procession of the ass (hence the term Festum asinorum, "feast of the ass", which is sometimes applied to this day). An ass, either a live animal or a figure, was brought into the cathedral to the mock-celebratory strophes of Orientis partibus, each strophe ending with the refrain in the vernacular "hez sire asne hez" (hail Sir Donkey, hail).
Orientis partibus
The Latin text of the song, with English translations, can be cobbled together from this and this website. The structure of the song is modelled on liturgical chants, but does itself not fit in any established, formal liturgical category, as it draws elements from different chant types and because it contains a vernacular refrain (chants for mass and offices were in Latin).
I will not here go into detail about the song, the ritual or the text, but I will instead focus on one of the strophes which runs like this.
Aurum de Arabia
Thus et myrrham de Saba
Tulit in ecclesia
Virtus asinaria
An incorrect translation of this strophe can be found here, in which the final verse is translated as "this gallant donkey". This translation presupposes that "virtus" is an adjective and a qualifier to subject of the sentence, and this is a common rendition of "virtus" in many scholarly translations into English (though I do not guarantee that this particular translation is scholarly).
The problem here, however, is that "virtus" cannot possibly be rendered as an adjective. Instead, it is "virtus" which is the subject and to which "asinaria" serves as a qualifier. This is also seen from the fact that the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh are rendered in the accusative and therefore are direct objects. In other words, "virtus" cannot simply be translated into a synonym for modern English virtuous, but must be understood from its Latin etymology, namely "strength" or "power".
In this particular case I favour "strength" because this reflects more accurately what is needed to bring, "tulit", the gifts of the three wise men into the church. Consequently, "asinaria" is thus the qualifying adjective to the strength, and the text should be rendered as follows.
The strength of the donkey
Carries in the church
Gold from Arabia,
Frankincense, and myrrh from Saba
In this way we see how different the results can be when translating a text containing the word "virtus". In this case, "virtus" is best understood as strength and as the subject of the sentence, but in other instances there might be other nuances that demand a different translation. In short, "virtus" is a very complicated word to translate, as shown by this single strophe from Orientis partibus.
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