Friday 17th March 9:00—10:30, Session 1
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| Overview of programme | ||||||
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Session: |
Liturgy and Prayers 1 |
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Place: |
Seminarraum 1 |
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Moderator: |
Rafał Wójcik |
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Paper 1: |
How to Choose Words to Explain the Lord’s Prayer to a Medieval Welsh Audience |
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Paper 2: |
Polish Translation of Pater noster and the Commentary by Jakub of Piotrków |
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Paper 3: |
Is Ambrose’s De Cain et Abel I.9.38 a Hint to Secret Prayer in The Wanderer 11b-14a? |
How to Choose Words to Explain the Lord’s Prayer to a Medieval Welsh Audience
Elena Parina
The Welsh text ‘The meaning of the Lord’s Prayer according to the interpretation of St Hugo’ is found in three 13-15th century manuscripts (NLW MS. Peniarth 16 i, Oxford Jesus College MS. 119 (The Book of the Anchorite of Llanddewi Brefi), NLW MS. Llanstephan 27 (The Red Book of Talgarth)), transcriptions are available online via the Welsh Prose 1300-1425 project (Thomas et al. 2013). The Welsh literary historian Saunders Lewis, who emphasised the importance of this work in the creation of a new language for a new field (Lewis 1923: 276), suggested that it was partly a translation and partly a free adaptation of parts of the first four chapters of* De quinque septenis* by Hugh of Saint Victor (on the discussion of this text see Siri 2015). Idris Foster (1950: 204-5) proposed as a more direct comparandum a passage beginning 'Oremus. Praeceptis salutaribus moniti...' in Pseudo-Hugh* Speculum de mysteriis ecclesiae* (chapter VII 'De celebratione missae' (PL xlxxvii, 371-373), which is probably an abridgement of the text suggested by Lewis.
This Latin text is quite close to the Welsh texts, so that with appropriate caution we may consider it to be similar to the Welsh translator’s source and discuss his choices and strategies. Hugh of Saint Victor commentary on the Lord's Prayer follows a strict structure: each of the seven petitions is supposed to help against one of the seven mortal sins by bringing a certain gift of the Holy Spirit, raising a virtue which is connected to one of the beatitudes. In the Welsh text we, therefore, find in a concentrated form the core vocabulary of Christian faith. By translating the text into a vernacular, the translator brought it to a completely different readership – we know that at least one of the manuscripts, the Book of the Anchorite of Llanddewi Brefi, was produced for a layman (Huws 2000: 239).
In this paper I will discuss the translator’s lexical choices, paying particular attention to the use of loanwords, to the translations of Biblical passages and to items that were problematic due to their theological complexity, in order to elucidate how medieval Welsh translators approached the challenges of explaining to their audiences a Latin text explaining the Lord’s Prayer.
References
Thomas, Peter Wynn; Smith, D. Mark; Luft, Diana (2010): Rhyddiaith Gymraeg 1300-1425. Cardiff University. http://www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.caerdydd.ac.uk.
Hugo de S. Victore [incertus]: Speculum de mysteriis Ecclesiae. Ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne (Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series latina, 177).
Foster, Idris Llewelyn (1950): The Book of the Anchorite. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the British Academy (Sir John Rhŷs memorial lectures, 1949).
Huws, Daniel (2000): Medieval Welsh manuscripts. Cardiff: University of Wales Press; National Library of Wales.
Lewis, Saunders (1923): Pwyll y Pader o ddull Hu Sant. In: Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 2, 286–9.
Siri, Francesco: En quête d’ordre : Hugues de Saint-Victor commentateur du « Notre Père ». In: Francesco Siri (Ed.): Le Pater noster au XIIe siècle. Lectures et usages (Bibliothèque d'histoire culturelle du Moyen Âge, 15), 75–92.
Polish Translation of Pater noster and the Commentary by Jakub of Piotrków
Dorota Maslej
The main purpose of the article is to analyze 23 known Polish language renditions of The Lord's Prayer. The analytical section allowed to distinguish unchangeable parts of the prayer and those translated in many ways as well as to identify types of differences and symptoms of standardization of this text. A supplementation to the linguistic analyses is the discussion of the early fifteenth century Latin commentary concerning translation of prayers into Polish by Jakub of Piotrków (James of Piotrków).
Is Ambrose’s De Cain et Abel I.9.38 a Hint to Secret Prayer in The Wanderer 11b-14a?
Gabriele Cocco
In the Old English The Wanderer 13-14a the poet reveals that, to shelter one’s soul, it is a man’s habit his ferðlocan / fæste binde, // healde his hordcofan ‘to protect his spirit-chest, to guard his treasure-chamber’. This imagery recalls St Ambrose’s exegetic words to Christ’s teaching tu autem cum orabis intra in cubiculum tuum (Mat. 6:6) in De Cain et Abel I.ix.39: “lege non cubiculum conclusum parietibus [...] sed cubiculum quod est in te, in quo includuntur cogitationes tuas, in quo versantur sensus tui”. In the Old English Gospels the avowal intra in cubiculum tuum is translated gang into þinum hedclyfan. And there hedclyfan simply means ‘chamber’ and it is a hapax legomenon in the Old English corpus. However, ferðlocan + fæste bindan (or bewunden) also occurs in Andreas 57b-58 and in Juliana 233b-235. St Ambrose’s words “cubiculum quod est in te, in quo includuntur cogitationes tuas” will thus be deemed as a possible source to The Wanderer13-14b and readjusted with the Old English ferð-loca and hord-cofa. This paper aims at exploring how Ambrose’s exegesis in De Cain et Abel I.ix.39 has been used in a veiled way by the poet to link Christ’s message in Mat. 6:6 to the wander’s plea for godly frofre ‘comfort’ (l. 115a) throughout his earthly peregrinatio animae over the parlous mare mundi whilst voyaging towards the celestial harbour. Besides, St Augustine’s reading of the cubiculum as a metaphor for the heart as a tabernacle of private prayer in De sermone Domini in monte II.iii.11 and De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum II.iv.1 will also be considered.