Filologija, No. 8, 1978.
Original scientific paper
The Kašić translation of the Song of Songs
Josip Hamm
Abstract
Bartholomew Kašić (Bartholomaeus Cassius, 1575-1650), author of the first printed Illyrian grammar (Institutionum linguae Illyricae libri duo, Romae MDCIIII -Illyrian in a more or less Shakespearean view, i. e. Slavonic, Croatian, but not of the littoral, the dialect applied in the grammar being of Bosnian coining) and of a Roman Ritual in Slavonic (1640), also left behind him a (still unpublished) translation of ,the Holy Bible. He worked on it for more than thirty years and tried hard to compose it in the dialect of his adversaries, the leading authorities of Dubrovnik (quidquid enim P. Cassius communi eloquio natiqni universae scribebat, Aristarchis Ragusinis displicebat). Trying to please them, he casually pushed it too far, creating forms like 'pomastiemi najboliemi' (unguentis optimis), stada 'ostrieženieh' (flocks of shorn ewes), i ne 'odgovorie' meni (et non respondit mihi), 'obliečje' njegovo kakono od libana (his appearance is like Lebanon), s dvimi 'plodiemi' (twins), usnama i 'zubiema' (over lips and teeth), etc. Nevertheless, his translatiorl compared with all the other translations in modern Serbo-Croat, surpasses them all, approaching the poetic quality of the best glagolitic texts of the 14th c.
The stylish shading of 1,5 : 6, where the Kašić text runs “Crna sam, ali pristala: nemojte razgledati mene, jerbo pocrnila jesam, jere me je priobrazilo sunce” (with the glagolitic equivalent “Čьrna esmь nъ krasna obrazomь: ne mozite smotriti . êko čьrna esmь . êko razobrazi mę slьnьce”) compared with the simplified Daničić version “crna sam ali lijepa: ne gledajte me što sam crna, jer me je sunce opalilo” is reminiscent of the differences between the King James Bible of 1611 and the revised standard version of 1952 (there “I am black, but comely: Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me« -and here: “I am very dark, but comely: Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy, because the sun has scorched me”).
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
184203
URI
Publication date:
15.10.1978.
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