A thesis submitted to the Division of Modern Languages, Harvard University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, by Karl O. E. Anderson

In Three Volumes

Volume II
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1940

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Chapter IV - Morris’s Style of Translation

Part I: Methods Used by Morris and Magnússon in Preparing their Translations

In the chronological survey which I have just completed of Morris’s Scandinavian studies, I have not, except for a few, brief, passing remarks, described the method of work with Morris and his collaborator, Eiríkr Wagnússon, followed in turning the Icelandic sagas into English, nor have I described and discussed the style of translation which Morris adopted for his English version of these tales. Both these matters are questions of great importance. Morris’s style of translation has been a subject of discussion among critics ever since his renderings began to be published, and it has exerted a wide influence upon later translators of Old Norse and Old English works; it is consequently essential for us to determine as definitely as possible just what part each of the two collaborators played in producing these English versions, Morris’s aims as a translator, the steps in the evolution of his style of translation, and, finally, the merits and defects of his method of translation.

As I have already stated in Chapter I,¹ Morris first met Eiríkr Magnússon, his collaborator, late in the summer of 1868, and he immediately decided to take lessons in Icelandic from his new friend so that he would be albe to read the sagas in the original, some of which he had already come to know through translations. In the Preface to Volume VI of The Saga Library Magnús-

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son presents a very vivid account of the beginnings of Morris’s Scandinavian studies:

His [Morris’s] first taste of Icelandic literature was the story of ‘Gunnlung² the Snaketongue.’ I suggested we had better start with some grammar. ‘No, I can’t be bothered with grammar; have no time for it. You be my grammar as we translate. I want the literature, I must have the story. I mean to amuse myself.’ I read out to him some opening passages of the saga, in order to give him an idea of the modern pronunciation of the language. He repeated the passus as well as could be expected of a first beginner at five-and-thirty, naturally endowed with not a very flexible organ. But immediately he flew back to the beginning, saying: ‘But, look here, I see through it all, let me try and translate.’ Off he started, translated, blundered, laughed; but still, he saw through it all with an intuition that fairly took me aback. Henceforth no time must be wasted on reading out the original. He must have the story as quickly as possible. …In this way the best of the sagas were run through, at daily sittings, generally covering three hours, already before I left London for Cambridge in 1871. And even after that much work was still done, when I found time to come and stay with him.³

Some of the sagas which Morris and Magnússon thus read together they decided to publish in an English form; the procedure which they followed in producing such translations was described by Magnússon in a letter he wrote to Miss Morris in the early years of the twentieth century when she was preparing her edition of the Collected Works of her father:

We went together over the day’s task as carefully as the eager-mindedness of the pupil to acquire the story would allow. I afterwards wrote out at home a literal translation of it and handed it to him at our next lesson. With this before him Morris wrote down at his leisure his own version in his own style, which ultimately did service as printer’s copy when the Saga was published.⁴

To this account should be added the statement by Magnússon, in the Preface to Volume VI of The Saga Library, regarding their method of work in preparing the translations included in that

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collection:

The work on it [The Saga Library] was divided between Morris and myself in the following manner: Having read together the sagas contained in the first three volumes, Morris wrote out the translation and I collated his MS. with the original. For the last two volumes of the Haimskringla the process was reversed, I doing the translation, he the collation; the style, too, he emended throughout in accordance with his own ideal.⁵

These statements by Magnússon present a fairly definite account of the way in which the tow collaborators produced their English version of the sagas. Still further details are furnished by the holograph manuscripts that have survived of these renderings. Man of these manuscripts will be discussed in great detail later in this chapter, and in some cases specimen pages will be presented in the Appendixes; here I shall simply comment on those features of these works which thrown light on Morris’s and Magnússon’s procedure. One of the most interesting of these manuscripts is that of the translation of the Grettis saga,⁶ which was one of the first Icelandic tales Morris and Magnússon read together. Here Morris has written out the English rendering, Magnússon has corrected it, and Morris has in turn passed judgment on Magnússon’s revisions. The resulting version, in part at least, served as printer’s copy. Moreover, occasional differences between the final manuscript form and the published text show that still more changes, evidently to be attributed to both Morris and Magnússon, were made in the proofreading. In the manuscript of the Eyrbyggja saga translation,⁷ the rendering is again in the hand of Morris, but here there are no corrections by Magnússon.

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Evidently, when the two collaborators read this saga in the late 1860’s, they at first planned to publish a translation of it, and then decided not to do so, Magnússon therefore not taking the trouble to revise Morris’s draft. When they did print a translation of the Eyrbyggja saga in 1892 in Volume II of The Saga Library, Morris apparently wrote out an entirely new rendering, for the manuscript under consideration almost certainly was not the immediate source of the printed text; not only are the differences between the published form and the manuscript version so extensive that they cannot be the result of changes made in the course of the printing, but there are no notes and directions to the printers in this manuscript, such as we find in some of the others. Also in the hand of Morris are the manuscripts of the translation of Three Northern Love Stories, Hogni and Hedinn, Roi the Fool, and Thorstein Staff-smitten, of The Story of Howard the Halt, of The Story of King Harald Greyfell and of Earl Hakon the Son of Sigurd, and of The Story of King Olaf Tryggvason; these manuscripts I have not had an opportunity to examine, but brief descriptions of them in a bookseller’s catalogue reveal their nature.⁸

Of an entirely different type are the manuscripts of the later part of the Heimskringla translation. In the manuscripts of The Story of Olaf the Holy, the Son of Harald⁹ and The Story

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of Sigurd the Jerusalem-farer, Eystein, and Olaf,¹⁰ both of which I have seen, Magnússon has written out the original translation, using only the right-hand page; in the case of the “vísur,” he has copied out the Icelandic in the prose order and has given the English rendering underneath, word by word; Morris has revised the prose directly on the right-hand page, making extensive changes, and has placed his verse translation of the “vísur” on the left-hand page, opposite Magnússon’s prose rendering. In this form the manuscript was sent to the printer. Finally, still further alterations were made, evidently by both Morris and Magnússon, in the proofreading, for we find a number of differences between the final manuscript version and the published test, just as in the case of the Grettis saga translation. Occasionally on the left-hand page we find notes in Morris’s hand, querying renderings by Magnússon or suggesting different interpretations; a letter written by Morris to Magnússon, which is quoted by Miss May Morris in one of her works, indicates that after Morris had revised Magnússon’s English version, the two collaborators were in the habit of meeting and discussing their work,¹¹ and it was evidently with these discussions in mind that Morris made the notes just mentioned. Finally I should like to point out that the manuscripts of The Story of Magnus the Good and The Story of Harald the Hard-redy, the sagas immediately following the Ólafs saga hins helga in the Heimskringla, are also in the handwriting of Magnússon, with

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alterations by Morris; I have not seen either one of these manuscripts, but the first is thus described in a bookseller’s catalogue¹² and the nature of the second is revealed in a remark made by Miss May Morris in one of her discussions of her father’s Scandinavian work.¹³

On the basis, then, of Magnússon’s accounts and of these manuscripts, we can make a fairly definite statement as to how Morris and Magnússon proceeded in preparing their translations. In the early years of this work they first read together the saga selected; then Magnússon wrote out a translation, and on the basis of this draft Morris produced a new rendering; this version was revised by Magnússon, and Morris in turn passed judgment on Magnússon’s alterations; the manuscript then went to the printer; finally a few more changes were made while the work was being printed. When they prepared their later translations, Morris took Magnússon’s literal draft and made the changes he wanted directly on these sheets, instead of writing out an entirely new version; during this stage of the work the two collaborators met for discussion of troublesome passages; Magnússon’s original draft with Morris’s alterations was sent then to the printer, but before the text was put into final form, a few more changes were made. Inasmuch as all the manuscripts of Icelandic translations that are in Morris’s hand are of sagas that were turned into English in the late 1860’s and the 1870’s, and all the manuscripts in which the original rendering has been written out by Magnússon and the changes

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have been made by Morris are of sagas that were translated in the 1890’s, it seems fairly safe to assume that the first method described above was used in preparing all the translations that were produced from 1868 to the time when Morris gave up his literary activities for public life late in the 1870’s, and that the second procedure was followed in all the saga-translating done in the 1890’s, after Morris’s return to literature.¹⁴

Part II: Morris as a Mature Translator of Old Norse

Far more important and much more complex than the question of Morris’s and Magnússon’s method of translation, is the question of Morris’s principles of translation. So far as I know, Morris never wrote out any direct statement of his aims as a translator; however from those manuscripts in which Magnússon produced the original rendering and Morris made his alterations directly on the same sheets, we can ascertain fairly definitely, by analyzing these changes, just what he was striving for. With this purpose in mind I have examined very carefully all the alterations that Morris made in the first half of Magnússon’s translation of the Sigurðar saga Jórsalafara, Eysteins ok Ólafs, one of the last of

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the Heimskringla sagas.¹⁵ The manuscript containing this rendering consists of forty-six folio leaves, with Magnússon’s original draft on the right-hand page and with Morris’s revisions of the prose on the same side and his verse renderings of the “vísur” on the left-hand page, just as I have described above. My reason for choosing this manuscript as the basis of my investigation of Morris’s principles of translation is that it is extremely well suited for such a study, in view of the fact that the rendering contained in this manuscript was prepared in the 1890’s, when Morris was a mature translator of Old Norse, thoroughly acquainted with the language and with fully developed ideas as to the form which he considered proper for an English version of the Icelandic sagas.¹⁶ In fact, the manuscript of the translation of that part of the Heimskringla in which this saga is included was once cited by Magnússon as “a particularly safe, indeed an indispensable basis” for a study of Morris as a translator of Old Norse; Magnússon wrote,

Among the literary remains of Willaim Morris the MS on which the second and third vols. of Snorri Sturlusion’s Heimskringla (being the fourth and fifth vols of the Saga Library) are based forms a particularly save, indeed an indispensable basis whereon the future criticism of the great man’s relation to old northern literature is to be based….

The interest of this record of Morris’ literary activity lies in the method adopted by him for the purpose of putting his own stamp on the style of the translation of Snorri Sturluson’s work.¹⁷

The complete results of this study of the first part of the

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manuscripts translation of the Sigurðar saga Jórsalafara, Eysteins ok Ólafs are presented in Appendix I. I have there first reproduced the test of the translation, placing on the left-hand page Magnússon’s original draft and on the right-hand page Morris’s revised version. I have then listed, first all the changes that Morris made in the prose of Magnússon’s rendering of the first half of the saga, secondly, the alterations he made in the “vísur,” thirdly, the revisions Morris and Magnússon both made in their own work, and lastly, the words and expressions which appear in the printed text in a different form from that in the final manuscript version and which must have been altered in the proofreading; in each case I have classified the changes according to the reasons for which they seem to have been made.

In the vast majority of cases, the motives which lay behind Morris’s alterations in Magnússon’s draft translation can be determined with a fair degree of certainty. Thus, if we analyze the changes Morris made in the prose of Magnússon’s rendering, as I have done in Part B of Appendix I, we find that it is clear that in a large group of alterations Morris was striving to bring the translation closer to the original, in another group he was aiming to give the rendering a suitable tone, and in a third group he was simply endeavoring to improve the quality of the language, correcting minor mistakes and awkward constructions which were the result either of Magnússon’s too close adherence to the text or of his lack of complete familiarity with English usage. We also find that in an number of changes Morris altered the form of proper nouns, the reason for these changes evidently being, as I shall show later, that he sometimes disagreed with Magnússon as to how

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an Old Norse namany certainty Morris’s exact motive; in other cases it is impossible even to suggest likely reasons. These alterations I have listed in the Appendix under the heading “Miscellaneous Changes.”

The largest and by all means the most important group of alterations that Morris made in the prose of Magnússon’s translation of the first half of the Sigurðar saga Jórsalafara, Eysteins ok Ólafs is the first one mentioned above – namely, the group of changes in which Morris seems to be seeking to bring the rendering closer to the original; in the work examined, 1007 alterations – more that sixty per cent of the total 1582 – can be safely ascribed to this motive. These 1007 changes fall into three classes. In the first one, consisting of 401 alterations, Morris seems to have been solely or primarily concerned with reproducing more literally the meaning or substance of the Old Norse; in the second class, which is made up of 232 changes, he was apparently endeavoring to imitate important features of the style of the sagas; in the third class, to which 374 alterations belong, he appears to have been trying to reproduce more closely the character of the diction of the original.

I shall first discuss those changes which fall into the first of these three classes. The great majority of these revisions, it must be admitted, are comparatively unimportant, for, as is to be expected, Magnússon’s rendering is very literal and mistakes

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in translation are extremely rare in his work. Morris seems to have been possessed with a passion for reproducing the substance of his original as exactly as possible, and he appears to have been tireless in making alterations for this purpose even though his changes in many cases had no perceptible effect on the meaning of a passage and did not reproduce the form of the Old Norse more faithfully. In a number of these revisions little or nothing seems to be gained, and his effort appears to be wasted. In order to show how painstaking Morris was in his desire for fidelity to the substance of the original, I have divided these alterations into two groups, the first one consisting of revisions of this type which involve major sentence elements and the second one being made up of changes which deal with minor parts of speech, such as articles, prepositions, demonstratives, and connectives.

As I have already stated, of the 1007 alterations in which Morris was apparently striving to bring the translation closer to the Old Norse, 401 or about forty per cent of the total, are devoted primarily to the more exact reproduction of the sense or substance of the original.¹⁸ Of these 401 changes, 294 involve major sentence elements.¹⁹ Perhaps the most important of these are the 36 alterations in which he inserted words or phrases that Magnússon had omitted. Nine of these revisions, however, consist simply of the insertion of the adverb “then” in imitation of the Old Norse use of “pá” at the beginning of the main clause of a sentence when an inverted clause stands first;²⁰ note, for example,

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the following changes:

XIV, 16-7, And when King Sigurd came to                             670, 22-4, En er Si-
Sleswick in Denmark Earl Eilif gave him a                              gurðr konungr kom í
glorious banquet: And when King Sigurd                                Slésvík á Danmörk, pá
came to Sleswick in Denmark then Earl Eilif                           veitti Eilifr jarl
gave him a glorious banquet²¹                                                     honum dýrliga veizlu
XXII, 23-4, Now when things had come to                             676, 34-677, 1, Ok
such a pass…, he went to see King Ey-                                               er í pat efni var komit
stein: Now when things had come to such a                            …, pá ferr hann á fund
pass…, then fares he to find King Eystein                               Eysteins konungs

This use of “pá” is of course entirely normal in Old Norse, but the use of “then” in English in such a position is considered redundant and therefore undesirable. The other 27 alterations of this type are devoted to the insertion of more important sentence elements, such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and even phrases, as in the following cases:²²

XVIII, 17, What the matter is I may not tell: What it is, lord, I may not tell out
XXIII, 98-9, at the Thing of Ere: at the Ere-Thing in Nidoyce
672, 2930, pat sem er, herra! má ek ekki frá segja
678, 29, á Eyrapingi í Niðarósi

These revisions, unlike the ones just considered, are entirely justified, and they are on the whole not objectionable, for in only a few cases is the resulting translation awkward; in none of these changes, however, does Morris’s insertion have an important effect upon the meaning of the passage involved.

In 10 of the alterations that Morris made for the sake of greater exactness he revived an Old and Middle English construction – namely, the use of an active infinitive with the verb “to let” in the sense of “to cause.”²³ This construction occurs frequently in the Old Norse, but Morris’s use of it in the English translation

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is extremely awkward, as the following examples show:

IV, 6-7, he should let market be holden:                        662, 29-30, skyldi jarl
the earl should let set market                                         láta setja…torg
XII, 13, then the kaiser had pall spread                         668, 28-9, pá lét kei-
over all the streets: Then let the kaiser                                    sarinn breiða pell um
spread pall over all the streets                                       öll stræti

A very large number of the changes that Morris made in order to render more literally the substance of his text are concerned with the reproduction of the word order found in the original. As I shall show later, Morris made a number of revisions in which he imitated the Old Norse order of words when the normal word order had been disrupted for the purpose of giving emphasis to certain words or phrases: such alterations are extremely important, for they serve to reproduce a feature of the style of the original. The changes that are not to be considered, however, are of little significance, for the word order imitated in them has no stylistic value. About half of them, for example – 51 of the total 100, to be exact – are devoted to the imitation of the Old Norse inversion of subject and verb in sentences in which adjectival or adverbial modifiers or the object are placed first.²⁴ Old Norse usage demanded the inversion of the subject and verb in such sentences, but this departure from the normal word order in English is very awkward. In fact, Morris’s careful reproduction of this peculiarity of Old Norse word order is to a large extent responsible for the artificiality and very un-English character of the translation. Note, for example, the following alterations:

III, 2-3, Four winters after the fall of King Magnus, King Sigurd went with his company away from Norway, having sixty ships: Four winters after the fall of King Magnus, fared King Sigurd his folk away from Norway; then had he sixty ships
662, 6, Fjórum vetrum eptir fall Magnús konungs, fór Sigurðr konungr liði sínu or Noregi; pá hafði hann 60 skipa

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VI, 22, Then King Sigurd cast about for a stratagem: Then sought King Sigurd a rede thereto
664, 30, pá leitaði Sigurðr konungr sér ráða

Some of the changes even make the translation misleading:

IX, 9-10, Another daughter of King William the Duke of Cyprus had for wife: Another daughter of King William had the Duke of Cyprus
666, 23-4, Aðra dóttur Vilhjálms konungs átti hertogi af Kípr

In the Old Norse the case endings make it clear that “hertogi” is the subject of the verb and “aðro dóttur” the object even though the order of words is inverted; in Morris’s English rendering, however, “daughter” appears to be the subject.

In the other 49 alterations in which he reproduced more exactly the word order of the original, he did not imitate any special Old Norse usage;²⁵ here he simply rearranged the words in Magnússon’s translation in order to conform to the order of words found in the saga, even though that order had no particular significance. On the whole these revisions neither impair nor improve the rendering. In only a few cases are the results of these alterations awkward. The following changes may serve as examples:

XI, 17-8, And when the kings had besieged              667, 30-1, Ok pá er    
the town for a little while : And when the                  peir konungarnir hőfðu
kings had a little while set before the                        litla hríð setit um
town                                                                      borgina
XXII, 95-6, I bring forward with witnesses                678, 26-7, flyt ek
the fact : I bring forth that case with                        mál pat með vitnum
witnesses                                                               fram

The remaining 148 revisions in which Morris reproduced more literally the substance or form of the Old Norse are of a miscellaneous nature.²⁶ Most of them are unimportant, but in two cases he corrected translations by Magnússon that were inaccurate. In one passage Magnússon had failed to notice the particular sense

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in which the verb “skrifa” was used:

XII, 38-40, Many ancient tidings are paint-               669, 17-9, Eru þar
ed there, “Æsir,” Volsungs, Giukungs, all                   skrifuð margskonar forn-
done in copper and metal : There are car-                tiðindi, Æsir, Vőlsungar,
ven many ancient tidings, the Ases, the                   Gjúkungar, gert af kopar
Volsungs, the Giukungs, done of copper and             ok málmi
metal

The past participle “skrifuð” can of course mean “painted,” but in view of the fact that it is used with the phrase “gert af kopar ok malmi,” it must here be employed in the sense of “carven.” In another passage Magnússon had omitted a pronoun, evidently through mere inadvertence, and had consequently given the wrong meaning to a sentence; Morris revised the sentence so that it conveyed the right sense, but he did not preserve the form of the Old Norse sentence:

XIV, 18-20, In Heathby he met Nicolas the              670, 25-7, Í Heiðabý
King of the Danes and gave him an exceeding         fann hann Nikolás Dana-
good cheer and ment himself with north into           konung, ok fagnaði hann
Jutland and gave him a ship : in Heathby he            honum afarvel, ok fylgði
met Nicolas the Dane-king who welcomed him         honum sjálfr norðr á
full well, and himself followed him north                  Jótland, ok gaf honum
into Jutland, and gave him a ship                            skip

In a few other changes of this type it must be admitted that although Magnússon’s version is not erroneous, Morris’s rendering brings out more completely the force of the original; note, for example, the following alterations:

XVIII, 36, Drop we that matter : Turn we             673, 13-4, Hverfum
thence                                                               þar frá
XX, 4-5, This his counsellors and friends               674, 15-6, þat þótti
and all the court deemed a sore trouble :             ráðamőnnum pungent, ok
That seemed heavy to the counsellors and            vinum hans ok hirðinni
his friends and the court

In the great majority of these changes, however, the difference between Magnússon’s and Morris’s renderings is trivial; there is but little gain in exactness in such alterations as the following:

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VI, 13-4, the rock over-hung the stone-             664, 23, bjargit skútti
wall : the berg shoved forth over the                  yfir steinvegginn fram
stone-wall
XI, 25, for a while : somewhile                          688, 10-1, nökkura hríð
XV, 2-3, King Eystein had done many things       671, 2-3, Eysteinn
in the land such as were useful (profitable):        konungr hafði mart gert
King Eystein had wrought much in the land         í landinu, þat er nyt-
such as was profitable                                       samligt var

Sometimes Morris was so eager to be as exact as possible that he was willing to make the translation awkward or even unintelligible in order to imitate the original in some trifling detail, as in these changes:

VI, 20-1, taunting them with want of heart :         664, 29, frýðu þeim
taunted them of their heart                                  hugar
XXII, 44-5, the case sorts under land’s-                 677, 17-8, sökin veit
law not under Birchisle-bylaw : the case                til landslaga, en eigi
looks to the land’s-law not to Birchisle-                  til Bjarkeyjarréttar
right

Finally, I should like to point out that quite apart from their effect on the translation, these alterations are interesting because many of them reveal in a clear and striking manner that Morris had by this time acquired a surprisingly exact and detailed knowledge of Old Norse. Often, for example, his revisions show that he was thoroughly acquainted with the inflectional forms of Old Norse and could easily identify a particular form. Thus, two of the changes just cited - those in XV, 2-3 and in VI, 20-21 - reveal that he recognized “mart” as a singular form and “hugar” as a genitive singular. Similarly, the three alterations listed below make it clear that Morris was thoroughly familiar with Old Norse inflections:

I, 13, of many sorts of tidings: of many          661, 15, margskonar
kind of tidings                                               tíðindi
XVI, 18, to turn : to turn them                       671, 31, snúast
XXII, 35, what the king misliked : what           677, 11, er konungi
misliked the king                                           mislíkar

Moreover, Morris often surprises us in these revisions by revealing

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an astonishingly exact knowledge of the meaning of Old Norse words; in addition to the change of “sorts under” to “looks to” in XXII, 44-45, which I cited a few lines above, not the following alterations:

XX, 59, parting from life : parting from            675, 30, heimván
this world
XXII, 4, services : parts                                  676, 17, hluta
XXII, 18, in more earnest : more stoutly          676, 31, með meiri freku
XXII, 25, how heavily : with what mickle          677, 1-2, með hversu
fierceness                                                      miklu áfelli

To be sure, Morris’s knowledge of the exact or primary meaning of these words may in some cases simply be the result of his having consulted some dictionary of Old Norse; however although he may have occasionally done so, the mere fact that he questioned Magnússon’s rendering and took pains to turn to some dictionary to ascertain the precise meaning of a word indicates that he was at this time a serious-minded, careful student of Old Norse.

I have already stated that most of the changes that Morris made in major sentence elements for the sake of exactness are relatively unimportent; of even less significance are the majority of the alterations that he made for the purpose of following the Old Norse more closely in the use of minor parts of speech, such as articles, prepositions, demonstratives, and connectives. These revisions reveal in a striking manner how deeply concerned Morris was with reproducing his original as precisely as possible; in devoting time and attention to such changes as these, he was, of course, caring his zeal for exactness to excess.1

In 22 of the 107 alterations concerned with minor parts of

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speech, Morris struck out, in certain expressions, definite or indefinite articles that Magnússon had introduced but which had been omitted in the original in accordance with the regular Old Norse usage.1 Needless to say, these changes are of practically no value; the gain in exactness which they bring about is only of the most trifling kind. Moreover, as is to be expected, most of these revisions have a very undesirable effect on the language of the translation. To be sure, in some cases the resulting translation. To be sure, in some cases the resulting translation is not objectionable, for the noun which the article modified in Magnússon’s version is used in a general sense or as a predicate substantive and the omission of the article is consequently permissible in English also:

I, 15-6, for it was said that in Mickle-                661, 16-7, var þat sagt,
garth the Northmen had any wealth to bless      at í Miklagarði féngu
themselves with : It was said that in                 Norðmenn fullsælu fjár
Micklegarth Northmen gat any wealth they
would to bless them withal
VIII, 3, At that time Rodger was a duke             666, 5, þar var pá
there : Then was Rodger duke there                  Roðgeirr hertogi

Most of these alterations, however, make the rendering seem very stilted and unnatural, as in the following cases:

I, 2-3, After the fall of King Magnus Bare-         661, 4-5, Eptir fall
leg his sons…took up the kingdom after            Magnús konungs berfœtts
him in Norway : After the fall of King Mag-        tóku synir hans konungdóm
nus Barefoot his sons…took up kingdom in         í Noregi
Norway
VII, 3, had a fight there : and there had            665, 28, ok átti þar
battle                                                              orrostu

The most numerous of the changes that Morris made in the form of minor parts of speech for the sake of exactness are those involving prepositions; there are 41 such alterations.2 In 29 of these revisions he changed the form of the preposition used, in 6 he omitted Magnússon’s preposition, and in 6 he added a preposition

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that Magnússon had neglected to translate. Note, as examples, the three following changes:

XII, 39-40, done in copper : done of copper           669, 18, gert af kopar
IV, 7, all through the winter : all the winter            662, 30, allan vetrinn
XVIII, 56, enter my mind : come into my               673, 29, í hug koma
mind

As in the case of the alterations involving articles, most of these revisions result in only the slightest gain in exactness; of no significance are such changes, for example, as the following:

XI, 17-8, And when the kings had besieged           667, 30-1, Ok þá er
the town for a little while : And when the              þeir konungarnir höfðu
kings had a little while set before the                    litla hríð setit um
town                                                                   borgina
XV, 10, within the king’s garth : in the                   671, 10, í konungsgarði
king’s garth

Occasionally, however, these revisions do alter the sense in a very slight degree:

XX, 54-5, that his oversight will abide                 675, 25-6, at hans ásjá
with me : that his oversight will stand                 mun yfir mér standa
over me

Although these changes, like those concerned with articles, are of little or no importance, they are not so objectionable as the alterations involving articles, for in only a few cases do they make rendering awkward.

Less numerous are the revisions dealing with demonstratives, there being only 20 such changes.1 In 5 of these cases Morris added “that” in imitation of the text, 5 times he changed “it” to “that,” on 3 occasions he rejected “this” for “that,” and twice he replaced “the” with “this” or “that.” The other changes are of a miscellaneous nature. Like the revisions involving articles and prepositions, none of these alterations render the translation more exact in any important way. On the other hand, very few of

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them impair the rendering; in fact, some of them actually improve the quality of the English. Note, for example, the following changes:

XIV, 23-4, The talk of men was that never           670, 29-30, Ok var þat
had there been a more glorious journey :            mál manna, at eigi hafi
And that was the talk of men, that never             verit farin meiri
had there been a more worshipful faring              virðingarför
XXII, 93-4, Then King Eystein searched the         678, 24-5, þá leitar
lawmen as to where in Norway were such            Eysteinn konungr við
Things as at which it was lawful : Then                lögmenn, hvar þau
seeks King Eystein of the lawmen where              þing eru í Noregi, at
those Things were in Norway whereat it was        …sé rétt
lawful

Finally, there are 24 alterations which Morris made for the purpose of following the Old Norse more closely in the use of connectives; 7 of them deal with relative pronouns, 8 with subordinating conjunctions, and 9 with coördinating conjunctions.1 The following revisions may be cited as specimens of these changes:

I, 18-9, be captain of what company should           661, 19-20, vera fyrir
betake itself : be captain of that folk                      því liði, er…gerðist
which should betake itself
XX, 31-2, even should the unravelling not              675, 2, þó at eigi
be : though the unravelling be not                         verði ráðit
XVIII, 8-9, wise, high-born and a scald :                672, 22, vitr ok ætt-
wise, and of great kin and a scald                          stórr ok skáld

These alterations do not have any important effect upon the sense of the translation, but they are not of such a trivial nature as the other changes involving minor parts of speech that we have considered. Moreover, as a rule they neither impair nor improve the quality of the English of the rendering.

As I have already stated several times, most of the revisions that Morris made in Magnússon’s draft in order to reproduce more literally the meaning or substance of his original are relatively

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unimportant. To be sure, close adherence to the text is on the whole a commendable quality in a translation, and, as I have pointed out in the foregoing discussion, the cases are not numerous in which Morris carried his zeal for exactness to the point where his renderings became awkward and unidiomatic; however, the translation with which Magnússon had provided Morris was very literal and accurate, so that there was little or no need for Morris to devote his attention to making the rendering more exact and almost the only revisions of this nature that he could make were perforce concerned with insignificant details. Very important, however, are the alterations in which Morris sought to reproduce more faithfully, not the sense or substance, but the style of the original.

Before commenting upon this second class of revisions that Morris made for the sake of exactness, I should like to present a brief discussion of the chief characteristics of the Old Norse saga-style; with such an account before us, it will be easier to determine how far Morris succeeded in imitating in his translation the style of his original.

The outstanding features of the prose of the best Icelandic sagas are undoubtedly its extreme - at times, almost stern - simplicity, its directness, and its spontaneity. Never in these works is the language learned, artificial, ornate, or affected; the sagas

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originated of course as oral compositions, and their language is in the main the language of everyday speech, - simple, concrete, fresh, and natural. Sometimes, especially in dialogue, the prose becomes colloquial or even racy, but usually the simplicity of expression is of a different type and gives the language a quiet dignity. To the casual reader of today the simplicity of the sagas seems artless or at times even naïve. Such is by no means the case, however, as closer examination shows; in fact, a simple, quiet, unpretentious style is by all means the hardest of all styles to employ successfully, and the undeniable charm and beauty of the homely, unadorned prose of the sagas is clearly the result only of the extremely fine taste of the saga-men. The art of the sagas is not always apparent, for it is the kind of art which conceals art.

What form does the simplicity and directness of the sagas take? One of the qualities of Icelandic prose which a modern reader of the sagas notices at once is the terseness and compactness of expression. There never seems to be an unnecessary word used in an Old Norse story. Thus, in the best Icelandic sagas we find a minimum number of adjectives introduced; only those descriptive words are used which are strictly necessary for the hearer’s or reader’s correct interpretation of the characters and actions described, adjectives and descriptions never being inserted merely for adornment. Similarly, figures of speech are very sparingly used; the few figures that we do find are usually common ones which have lost whatever colorful and startling effect they may once have had and which therefore blend readily with the subdued tone of the whole. Furthermore, we never find strictly unessential

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words or phrases added simply for the sake of making the thought sequence clearer or the rhythm of the sentence smoother, as is so often done in modern prose; as a result the rhythm of the language tends to be slow, heavy, and sometimes a little rough and halting. Moreover, the desire for simplicity is sometimes carried so far that not only are unimportant words and expressions excluded, but all attempts to heighten the artistic effect of a passage by the use of carefully chosen words that are concrete, specific, and therefore colorful and vivid are also avoided, and plain, colorless, and neutral words employed instead; occasionally the language used is so plain that the style may even be described as bald.

As is to be expected, this terseness, restraint, and directness of expression gives a great deal of vigor, virility, and force to the prose; this effect is frequently heightened by the skillful arrangement of the words within a sentence. As Finnur Jónsson points out in his discussion of the saga-style in Den Oldnorske og Cidislandske Litteraturs Historie, the order of words is usually that of subject, verb, and object, as in most modern languages; but there was a great deal of freedom permitted in the Old Norse in the arrangement of words, and very often we find the normal order rejected and the words so placed that the important ones will receive the main sentence accents. The significant words may stand first, as in “dunði þá blóðit um hann allan,” or last, as in “þeir lőgðu til fund,” or at those points within a sentence where the accent falls, as in “kveð ek yðr þeira orða allra, er yðr skylda lög til um at bera.”1

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Finally, when we examine the structure of Old Norse prose, we find here also, as in the choice of words, an extreme simplicity. Usually the sentences are short, and when long sentences do occur, they almost always consist of a number of independent clauses, only loosely connected, if at all. Very seldom do we meet with well-knit sentences in which there is one main statement and one or more dependent clauses, with the relation of each dependent clause to the main statement definitely indicated by the introductory conjunction. Such carefully developed sentences are found only in a literary style; the sagas originated, as I have already stated, as spoken tales, and their loose sentence structure is of course one of the most obvious results of this fact. Other usages common in Old Norse prose are likewise to be traced to the peculiar origin of the sagas. Thus, we frequently find a certain carelessness in the use of connectives. Just as in a compound sentence the various clauses are often left standing isolated with no indication of the bearing that one has upon another, so one sentence very frequently follows another without any kind of connective to show the relation of this particular statement to the preceding one; as Richard Heinzel says in his “Bescheibung der isländischen Saga,” “Unzähligemal müssten wir in einer fliessenden modernen Uebersetzung ein, auch, da, dann, wider, und zwar, eben, aber, dagegen. denn, dadurch, davor, darauf usw. einschieben….”1 Again, we seldom find any consistency in the use of tenses; the verbs often shift from the past to the present and back again to the past, even in the same passage, without any attempt at uniformity whatsoever. Sometimes even the grammatical construction changes in the course

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of a sentence; cases of anacolouthon are not all rare. Thus, we frequently find that a statement begun as indirect discourse breaks abruptly, without any introductory words, into direct discourse in the middle of a sentence. Finally, we occasionally come across a pronoun that has been carelessly used without any definite antecedent expressed to which it can refer.1

When we examine the revisions that Morris made in the first half of Magnússon’s rendering of the Sigurðar saga Jórsalafara, Eysteins ok Ólafs, we find that in a great number of changes - in 232, to be exact - the translation is so altered that it reproduces some of the features of the safa-style that have just been discussed.2 It is of course possible that Morris made these revisions, not for the express purpose of imitating these characteristics of

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Old Norse prose, but merely for the sake of rendering his translation as literal as possible. As I have said before, Morris never put into writing any definite statement of his aims as a translator, and the mere study of the manuscript does not always reveal the exact motive he had for making certain changes; however, it is difficult to believe that Morris, who had read a truly great number of sagas with keen appreciation, had not also analyzed their style and that he was not in these alterations deliberately attempting to carry over into his own translation something of the flavor of the original.

As I have already stated, one of the most striking features of the Old Norse saga style is its terseness. The tendency to use the very minimum number of descriptive adjectives necessary Morris did not have any opportunity to imitate, for Magnússon’s rendering was extremely literal and carefully reproduced this characteristic of Old Norse prose.1 On several occasions, however, we find that Magnússon had departed from his original and had introduced figures of speech not present in the Old Norse; in ten changes in the pages examined Morris rejected such figures and substituted literal renderings of the text, as, for example, in the following revisions:2

XVIII, 49-50, to hit upon what you want : 673, 24, eptir at leita
to seek after this
XXII, 25-6, King Sigurd fell on him for 677, 2, Sigurðr konungr
having this matter out : King Sigurd would vildi heimta málit af
carry on the case against him honum

Needless to say, these alterations are entirely justified, and help

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to reproduce the tone of the original.

Moreover, in a number of cases Magnússon had departed from his text and had introduced words or phrases, not in the original, in order to make the thought sequence clearer or the rhythm of the sequence smoother; in 55 of the revisions that Morris made in Maggnússon’s draft, he carefully excluded such words.1 Most of these changes are concerned with the removal of adverbs and phrases, 17 adverbs being struck out and 15 phrases; the following alterations are good examples of these revisions:

IV, 13, and had it all brought down to his 663, 2-3, ok lét flytja
ships : and let flit it all to his ships til skipa sinna
XVII, 51, but there is one thing still 673, 25, en einn er
left : But there is one thing left nú hlutr eptir
I, 2-3, After the fall of King Magnus Bare- 661, 4-5, Eptir fall
leg his sons…took up the kingdom after Magnús konungs berfœtts
him in Norway : After the fall of King Mag- tóku synir hans konung-
nus Barefoot his sons…took up kingdom in dóm í Noregi
Norway
IV, 11-2, having but a small band with him: 663, 1, því at hann
whereas he had but a little band hafði lítit lið

The other changes of this type are of a miscellaneous nature; in these revisions we find nouns, intensive pronouns, adjectives, infinitives, participles, finite forms of the verb and noun clauses excluded. Ten of the alterations listen in this class call for special comment, for in these cases Morris did not actually strike out words which Magnússon had insertent but he replaced clauses, phrases, and nouns with minor words, such as pronouns, demonstratives, and adverbs;2 I have placed these changes in the group now under discussion because it seems to me almost certain that he made these alterations because he wanted to follow the Old Norse exactly

                                                                                                                             

The final sections of Anderson's manucript, which consist of four appendices, are available in pdf form:

pp. 551 - 625 1st half of Morris and Magnússon's translation of Sigurd the Jerusalemfarer, pp. 623-884

pp. 626 - 700 Sigurd the Jerusalemfarer

pp. 701 - 775 Sigurd the Jerusalemfarer

pp. 776 - 850 Sigurd the Jerusalemfarer

pp. 851 - 866 Sigurd the Jerusalemfarer

pp. 867 - 1008 Eyrbyggia Saga, manuscript compared with 1892 version, pp. 885-925, 949-55; Grettissaga, pp. 926-41; style of Morris's illuminated mss., pp. 942-91; Prologue to Heimskringla, 956-66; Haralds saga, pp. 967-76; Haward the Halt, pp. 977-91; Old Icelandic usages in Morris's poetry, pp. 993-98; Scandinavian works in Morris's library, pp. 999-1010

pp. 1009 - 1032 bibliography, pp. 1011-32