RDCG 1: a commented comparison
- 1.1
- 1.2
- 1.3
- 1.4
- 1.5
- 1.6
- 1.7
- 1.8
- 1.9
- 1.10
- 1.11
- 1.12
- 1.13

RDCG 1: a commented comparison

The text as a whole is consistently being made shorter and more concise, but the end, 1.13, is expanded, compensating for what has been cut.

1.1

GRS: Regnante in urbe Constantinopolitana imperatore Anastasio,
CC: Kraljujući cesar u gradi basiliji cesarstva,
- Ruling the king in the city “Basilia” of the kingdom
RDCG: Iustiniano partibus Orientis imperante¹⁾

1.2

GRS: qui se et alios multos Eutychiana haeresi maculaverat,
CC: om.
RDCG: om.

1.3

GRS: Romae vero praesidente Gelasio papa [secundo]
CC: om. (cf. 1.6)
RDCG: anno Christianae salutis DXXXVIII,²⁾

1.4

GRS: eo tempore praeclaruerunt multa sanctitate in Italia
Germanus Capuanus episcopus et Sabinus Canusinae sedis episcopus
CC: u vrime u ko se bihu prosvitlili blaženi muži
- in the time when there shone blessed men
CC: Jerman biskup pristolja kapitulskoga i pristolja Kanužije Sabin biskup,
- German the bishop of the see of Capitol and of the see of Canosa Sabinus the bishop
RDCG: quo tempore Germanus et Sabinus episcopi erant, uitae sanctitate nobiles,³⁾

1.5

GRS: atque venerabilis vir Benedictus apud Cassinum montem;
CC: i tolikoje počtovani i blaženi muž Benedik blizu gore Cicilijanske pribivaše,
- and the so much honored and blessed man Benedict near the mountain of Sicily was dwelling
RDCG: et Benedictus abbas Montis Cassini,

1.6

GRS: om.
CC: na lit gospodnjih trista i pedeset i sedam,
- on the years of the Lord three hundred and fifty and seven
RDCG: cf. 1.3 (anno Christianae salutis DXXXVIII)

1.7

GRS: exiit quoque gens a septentrionali plaga,
CC: i tada izide niki puk i mnoštvo ljudi od istoka,
- and then there came out a people and a multitude of men from the east
RDCG: om.

1.8

GRS: quae Gothi nominabantur, gens ferox et indomita,
CC: ki se zovihu Goti, ljudi tvrdi i golemo ljuti prez zakona kako divji;
- who were called Goths, people hard and much vicious lawless as wildmen
RDCG: om. (cf. 2)

1.9

GRS: cui erant tres fratres principes, filii regis Senudslavi.
CC: kim ljudem bihu gospoda tri bratinci, ki bihu sinove kralja Sviholada,
- to which people were the lords three brothers, who were sons of the king Sviholad
RDCG: om.

1.10

GRS: Quorum nomina sunt haec: primus Brus, secundus Totila, tertius vero Ostroyllus.
CC: kim bratincem biše ime: prvomu Bris, drugomu Totila, tretomu Stroil.
- to which brothers was the name: to the first Bris, to the second Totila, to the third Stroil.
RDCG: om.⁴⁾

1.11

GRS: Itaque Brus qui maior caeteris erat,
CC: Bris, koji biše najstariji,
Bris, who was the eldest
RDCG: om. (cf. 1.3)

1.12

GRS: defuncto patre,
CC: umarši otac njih,
having died the father their
RDCG: Sfiolado rege uita defuncto⁵⁾

1.13

GRS: Brus sedit in solio eius,
CC: sede na pristolje i misto očevo,
sat on the throne and in the place of his father
RDCG: Brissus inter liberos eius natu maior successit in regno.⁶⁾

Back to the paper.

¹⁾ At the beginning we find the following changes: a. transposition of syntax: Croatian present participle is transposed into Latin ablative absolute; Croatian prepositional phrase is transposed into a dative object (and, accordingly, the perspective has shifted from where the emperor rules to which region he rules over); b. recasting of word order: the position of participle and noun is inverted, but the syntactic unit still encloses its supplements; c. explanation and clarification: Marulić supplies the name of the emperor, as if making up for the jumble that we read instead of the name of Constantinople; d. aptum: M. aims at a cultured readership — readers who would know who Justinian is and where he rules. “Partibus Orientis” may sound vague, but this turn of phrase has a certain pedigree, going back at least to Cicero; it can be found numerous times in authors of Christian Latin (including historians such as Eusebius of Caesarea) and late antiquity. — We can also consider this as translator's implicitation, leaving out information which is readily inferred from the context.

²⁾ Note the following translators' techniques: a. Recasting: Marulić changes the order of units, giving precise date immediately, unlike CC, which has first the relative dating by Germanus, Sabinus, and Benedict. b. Accepted translation: the phrase anno Christianae salutis is an equivalent to the “year of Our Lord”. It is not the more common (and less elegant) “anno Domini” that we moderns would perhaps expect. c. Marulić corrects the date.

³⁾ In 1.4 and 1.5, note: a. hypotaxis instead of parataxis (eo tempore > quo tempore); b. more concision: bishops go together; c. cultural aptum: the readers would know who were bishops Germanus and Sabinus; d. correction (Benedict's monastery); e. reduction: less epithets (none for Benedict); f. the praise is transposed from a sentence into an adjectival phrase; it comes after the names, not before (the names gravitate towards the beginning of a clause).

⁴⁾ Two techniques are prominent in passages 7–11: a. Omission: one motif is transposed to the next sentence (description of the Goths), the other is dropped altogether (three fabular brothers). b. Editing the narrative: from the date RDCG takes us straight to a succession to the throne; what is dated is the event, and not the barbarian invasion. So a jumbled chronicle turns to a tight plot. The CC narrative moves from date to invasion and then, by the way of rulers, back to succession.

⁵⁾ Notable features: a. Cohesion and economy: more information is packed into the ablative absolute. We meet the king and learn his name as he dies, instead of having to remember him from previous sentence. b. Recasting: the name is again placed at the beginning of the sentence. c. Classicizing collocation: uita defuncto, which Marulić likes (cf. CroALa), is found in Vergil, Ovid, Aulus Gellius etc. For “deceased” the Christian writers, more often than “uita defunctus”, use just “defunctus”.

⁶⁾ a. Recasting: information from the beginning of GRS and CC is presented after the ablative absolute b. Equivalence (substitution of idioms): a terminus technicus “successit in regno” replaces metonymy (“sedit in solio” was obviously felt to be strange to Croatian at the time of translation). Yet classical authors (Pompeius Trogus, Pliny the Elder) seem to have only “regno succedere”, as opposed to the Bible and the Christians. c. Reduction: by recasting, transposition, and equivalence M. makes the text more concise. d. Expansion: “Natu maior” is expanded by “inter liberos eius” and not by “ceteris”. In Croatian it is possible to leave out the comparison altogether (especially as it was explained already), so Marulić's addition makes explicit what was implicit in Croatian. The expansion is at the same time classicizing.