Kedves Tanár Úr!

Nem volt kérdés, hogy írok a festschriftjébe: az már inkább, hogy mit. Azt tudtam, hogy fordításról biztosan nem: idegen a műfaj – a nyolc év Dante (meg egyebek) alatt azt szoktam meg, hogy olvassam a fordítását, összevessem valami forrással (Dante esetében ez nem az eredeti volt), hosszú (vagy rövid) sorokat keressek és rövid megjegyzéseket írjak. Jött majd az is megint, csak nem itt. (Múlt-jövő úgy értendő, hogy az írás pillanatában még nem néztem bele a IV. Henrik-be, de mire ezt megkapja, addigra meg fogtam kommentálni.) Nyelvészeti tanulmányt se akartam írni, mert most, disszertálást tervezgetve, nem nagyon tudok elszabadulni a középangol témától, amit (téma)vezet, és amiről így többet hall, mint eleget: nem kell az még a festschriftbe is. Verset meg középangolul szoktam írni leginkább, abból viszont már kapott párat születésnapjára (l. appendix).

De hát mégiscsak születésnap, úgyhogy mégiscsak vers és némileg középangol. Meg a többi olyan nyelv, amelyekkel együtt foglalkoz(t)unk. És egy kicsit verstan és nyelvészet is. (Akitől a versformát és versötletet kölcsönöztem, vele soha nem foglalkoztunk együtt – valószínűleg nem is fogunk –, de adta magát.)

Pont az egyik születésnapi középangol versemre válaszolva írta ezt: „köszönet a lábjegyzetekért – azok nélkül félkarú óriás a filológus…”: úgyhogy megjegyzeteltem ezt is, ezúttal azért a többi olvasó kedvéért is; meg azért, hogy lássa, észrevettem pár hibát metrumban, rímben (ha hibának lehet őket nevezni). A következő bekezdés pedig csak a többieknek (nemközépangolosoknak) szól: mi már nagyon sokszor megbeszéltük, így ha gondolja, hagyja ki.

Középangolban a szóvégi e-t még kiejthették: lehetett nyelvtani szerepe (pl. a határozott melléknévi ragozásban – the gode man), egyes szavak (pl. newe, ende) meg egyszerűen e-re végződtek. Tehát ebben a versben, amit a mai angolul tudó nem gondolna szótagnak, még lehet az. Az e-k szerepét külön-külön nem magyaráztam meg: viszont ha ki kell őket ejteni, akkor ë szerepel helyettük.

És hogy miért van az egész többesben? Én csak annyit tudok, hogy a második sort az összes nyelvtörténet-hallgató nevében írtam: aztán maradt a többes. Szerintem ha nyelvészeti adatként tekintenénk erre a szövegre, akkor arra a következtetésre jutnánk, hogy ezt a kérdést bízzuk az irodalmárokra.

Many a myrie retorn – and thonkes for alle thynges,

Werthmüller Gyöngyi

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1“Whan that” … – Megint az április?Célzás Chaucer Canterbury Tales-ének első sorára, mely nem maradhat ki az angol nyelvtörténeti tanulmányokból.
Kívülről tudjuk már mi is!
Trewë.
Newë

5mot ben the song that we wol hanmot ben: ’must be’; han: ’have’ (inf.)
for yow, our derë Redëman: Redeman: kettős utalás; egyrészt ’tanács’ (középangol r(e)ed), másrészt ’nád’ (angol reed). Az e itt vagy azért van, mert ez egy összetett szó; vagy mert a Dr of the Rede már „bevett” megnevezés (mármint a költő hívta már így őt máskor is), és akkor az e egy elhomályosult esetrag.
siker’biztos’ (középang., ld. német sicher).
ʃiker.

9A song which serves as mental food.food: good – Egyes dialektusokban ez rím, Received Pronunciation-ben (amit „mi beszélünk”) viszont nem.
Some macaroni would be good…
Der Reim’A rím / teljesen tiszta’ (német). Ez az előző rímpárt kommentálja, meg azt, hogy önmaga is teljesen szabálytalan ebben a versben; hiszen itt (és az eredetiben) a rövid (kétszótagú) sorok nőrímek, azaz már az első szótagjuk is rímel.
voll rein.

13Hogy mit ünneplünk, egyre megy –
harminckettőtharminckettőt: célzás az eredetire. vagy hetvenet –
feles-A költő – a címzettel együtt – fölös-t mondana, de az nem rímel.
leges

17említeni a számokat;
úgyis kívánunk még sokat,
valde.’nagyon, erősen’ (latin). (Klasszikusban hosszú /eː/-re végződik, de itt már nem.)
Al thethe: Középangolban nem tudjuk pontosan a szóvégi -e értékét (így a the e-jének értékét sem); egyesek szerint inkább [e] mint [ə]. Ráadásul a latin hangsúlytalan e-t nem nagyon lehet mással rímeltetni…

21good that we kan. Prosperité
and welthe; and with that wishen we
joyëChaucer Troilus and Criseide-jének első versszakában a Troye, joye és fro ye rímel. Chaucernél (ahogy itt is) az elöljáró után a névmás alanyesetben áll, ami egyébként szokatlan.
to yë.

25And as a song needs to be sung,
so wish we meter, sound and tongue:
legyen,A költő ezt a rímet szerette volna elkerülni: de akkor nem tudta volna megoldani a következő versszakot, amiért talán megérte megtartani.
melyen

29fordít, tanít és elmereng… –
(E.g. is h the same as ŋ?) - ŋ: ejtsd: eng. Utalás arra az elméletre, mely szerint az angol [h] és [ŋ] komplementáris disztribúciójuk miatt ugyanazon fonéma allofónjai.
Anyag,
s adat.

33A makaróni véget ért.
Egyet kívánnánk még azért:
Csak ezt –Hímrím, ami ebben a versben (és az eredetiben) a rövid sorokban szabálytalan (ld. 11–12. sor és az ahhoz tartozó jegyzet); de a vers végén, és a kívánság miatt, talán megengedhető…
the best.

Dear Dr of the Rede – for that is your name in the Middle English tradition (at least in my Middle English tradition),If anyone reading this should happen not to know this, they should consult the relevant note below.

This appendix contains two of the “Early” Middle English birthday poems that I wrote for you – “Early” in the sense that they were written (respectively) five and four years ago. Unlike in the case of Pasta Poliglotta (which I wrote for this webschrift and thus I knew it would be published – although I’d have written something anyway), when I wrote these, I didn’t think of publishing them at all. They were simply meant to be presents: I wrote them to express my thanks and gratitude, and (of course) I hoped they could provide at least some linguistic delight and fun.

The thought of publishing these earlier pieces didn’t occur until sometime late autumn: not much before that time we had a conversation, during the course of which you told me that I should brag about my Middle English poetry to the profession. Since I don’t have many Middle English poems apart from these verses, probably these are the ones you thought were worthy of being shown to the (international) professional audience.For the sake of whom let me note that the main text itself, Pasta Poliglotta, is a macaronic poem and some of it is in Hungarian, which would render it incomprehensible for most readers. (The other languages are Modern English, Middle English, German and Latin.) The letter that introduces it is also in Hungarian.

While putting the finishing touches to the Pasta (or not much after submitting it) I wondered, what if I added some earlier pieces, too. This way you could read them again if you’d like to; they would be easily available for anyone; and I think in this collection they can remain what I originally intended them for: presents for you (in the company of other presents). In fact I wouldn’t want these published anywhere else. So I asked our editor and he said we could add them.

And if any reader should feel (as indeed part of me does) that writings that were originally meant to be private (by private I mean the number of readers, not really the content, as there’s not much personal information in these poems), let me assure them it will be arranged properly: on the very day when this collection is going to be presented, we will ask the addressee if I have his permission to publish these. If I don’t, this appendix will be deleted immediately. So if anyone is reading this, then either the collection has not been presented yet, or the permission was granted.

I chose these two poems because these are the ones I found the best and the most mature. I haven’t changed anything in the poems themselves: just added two brief introductions and some more explanatory and textual notes; but the original versions, too, contain most of the notes. (These notes were added to the poems by a linguist, who happens to be the poet as well.)

Dear Dr of the Rede, let me wish you many happy returns of the day for the future with these recycled ditties from the past.

Poem for Ádám Nádasdy’s 65th birthday

In this poem I tried to imitate John Gower’sJohn Gower (c. 1340–1408): trilingual poet (Middle English, Latin, French); and as his Middle English is the poet’s main doctoral research subject, the celebratee (the poet’s PhD supervisor) hears a good deal of him. meter (iambic tetrameter) and language. I gave the poem to Dr Nádasdy in person at a PhD consultation a few days before his birthday, saying it was a Middle English poem we might like to read together. Its “title” is IV because that makes it look as if it was some fragment IV (nice and medieval) – and this is my fourth birthday poem for him. I was of course perfectly aware that I would give it to him in person, and I also knew he was very likely to read it out loud: that’s why the poem says what it says.

Word-final -e’s which have a grammatical role or are lexically part of the word have an umlaut above them if they have to be pronounced in order for the verse to scan properly. (We assume that line-final -e’s, if their presence is grammatically justifiable, were also pronounced, but we do not know this for certain. As the iambic pentameter is not influenced by the sounding or non-sounding of this extra syllable, these -e’s are not printed with a dieresis.)

IV.

Now two am I, but o persone.
Oon of me sitteth al myn one,
And axeth hem, the noblë nine,The muses
to come and bringë verses fyne
5 Swiche as thoccasioun deserveth.
For if memoirë wel me serveth…
But endëlees is his power!That of the poet’s memory – which, fortunately, is good enough, although perhaps not as extraordinarily good as the addressee of the poem thinks (or used to think) it is.
Ther is that burel clerk, Gower –Thus I, which am a burel clerk (Confessio Amantis, Prol. 52); an ignorant clerk, a clerk dressed in coarse clothing. See Russell A. Peck’s edition (2006): d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/peck-gower-confessio-amantis-volume-1-prologue
He koudë many a line indite.
10 But what! I can hem al recite,recite was first attested in the 15th century, which may suggest that this poem was not written in the period whose language it uses.
Fro forth to bak, fro bak to forth!This exaggeration is another allusion to the „memory myth” (see the note above) that evolved between the poet and the addressee of the poem.
No thyng and noon is morë worth!
Ful wel knowe I that on his weye
Nerer and nerer comth the deye
15 Whan that it is the ryhtë dede
To grietë Doctour of the Rede.Rede can mean both “reed/cane” (a pun on his Hungarian surname which is derived from that word) and “advice” (which he gives so re[e]dily). The final -e marks the oblique case.
I wish a good thrittenes five:
That ye be jolif, myrie and blyve.happy, quick
Of sounessounds teche us the science:phonology
20 And help the poete of Florence
So that he his wordes wiseThis line is “headless” (the first iamb lacks its first syllable): highly unusual in Gower (if it exists at all). (Chaucer applies this fairly often.)
Of Purgatoire and Paradise
Koude in youre oghnë tongë telle
As ye han holpen him thurgh Helle!Dr Nádasdy was translating the Divina Commedia into Hungarian at that time.
25 So two am I, but o persone.
Oon of me sitteth al myn one:
a Middel English caroller.Certainly, real Middle English poets did not know that their language would once be called Middle English, so what we are reading here is probably spurious.
The oother? Sche is your scholer,student
Who sitteth with you at this time…
30 and herë mot hir oghnë rime!must hear

Poem for Ádám Nádasdy’s 66th birthday

This poem was academically inspired – although I am somewhat reluctant to admit that the author of the paper cited below was my actual muse. There is a paperKemp Malone, “Chaucer’s ‘Book of the Duchess’: A Metrical Study,” in Chaucer und seine Zeit: Symposium für Walter F. Schirmer (Tübingen, 1968), pp. 72–95. on the meter of Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, whose meaning, purpose and argument I couldn’t understand at all. That paper wants to prove that the Duchess wasn’t written in iambic tetrameter (as most scholars think it was) but in ancient Germanic four-beat meter – that is, in alliterative meter without alliteration. I showed it to Dr Nádasdy and told him that if his opinion on the paper was the same as mine, then I, too, will write a study and prove that he (Nádasdy) wrote the entire corpus of his Hungarian poetry in the so-called “Hungarian halving twelve”:Translation mine. I do not know of any received English term for the name of this verse form. rhyming couplets of 12-syllable lines, in which the first and the seventh syllable must carry stress,Except when the (half)-line begins with a function word, most often an article. and there is at least a word boundary (but most often a major syntactic boundary) after the sixth syllable. Many early Hungarian poems and folk songs are composed in this form.

Dr Nádasdy couldn’t appreciate the paper either – and although I didn’t write the study I promised, I composed a Middle English poem on the subject instead, in couplets of “halving twelve”. I waited until the right moment came: he turned 66, and this type of line has 6 + 6 syllables.

As in the previous poem, word-final -e-s that are lexically part of the word or have a grammatical function, are printed with an umlaut if they are to be sounded. (Elision – the silencing of word-final -e before vowel- and some [at least orthographically] h-initial words – applies here, too, as in the previous poem.) However, unlike in the previous poem that has octosyllabic lines which can have an extra (ninth) syllable, and we cannot know for certain if a line-final extra -e forms its own syllable, here the linguist’s job is easy. This is probably the first and only Middle English poem with this form, and as these lines must have exactly 12 syllables, I, the linguist, can be certain which line-final -e’s the poet, me, intended to sound; hence those, too, are printed with a dieresis above.

Ádám Nádasdy and the Hungarian Halving Twelve

Derë Maister, if ye | han youre eres fullë
With my verses dredful, | with my dities dullë
Here is somthing elles | in a newe steveneIn this couplet, probably the n is the nucleus of the syllables, not the -e.
With syllables twelvë | and the halves evene.
Now, ye koudë seyen | that I shold this chaungë:
6 That this forme in Englissh | is ful fremdeforeign and straungë.
Bot your scholer am I, | thus I knowë motëmust
That in our langageHungarian hath | every tonge his rotë.The kind of nationalistic statement (without any justifiable argument) that no real linguist would ever utter.
And syth that theseThe -e in these is merely scribal. verses | been for youre sakë,
And ye al your verses | in this formë make
(Al that ye translaten | al your poesië
12 Wel I wot they han this | ilkësame melodië,)
Thoghtë me I woldë | if that God me grauntë,
So that yow it plesë | in this maner chauntë…
This was but folyë | and nat worth a mitë.
I have oother causë | in this forme enditë!
For your six and sixty | soothly, as I gessë,
18 My gretinges koude I | betrë nat expresse.
With six atte lefte and | eek the rightë sydë
wishe I yow the bestë | myrie, jolie tydë.
Helpë yow the muses | whan ye wolde singë,
Goode scholers yive yow | joye in your techingë.
As my carole endeth | lat it in my stedë
24 Thonkë for your guidaunce | or sholde it be… Redë