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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Mon Sep 30th, 2013 10:17 am |
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Hi,
I'm currently working on a project which involves transcribing and translating Adam Haslmayr's responses to the Rosicrucian manifestos.
The question I have is a simple one. Why is his text so unstable from one edition to the next? Take this paragraph for example:
Weil dann der Allmechtige getrewe Gott / uns alle seine Bildnuß mit seiner ewigen weißheit / von anbegin hero geziert will haben / darumben wir nicht sicut Equi & Muli in quibus non est intellectus, werden / oder sein sollen / und will das wir alle erleucht / wie seine Propheten / Vates und Apostlen Sybillen / Philosophi, oder Magi Sancti, sollen ersterben als Feindt deß Teuffels / und erleuchte Kinder Gottes / von anfang biß an das endt / in seines Sohns / liecht und glantz sollen scheinen / also das sich die erkandtnuß / beydes / seines Sohns und der Natur / je mehr und mehr / als ihr begert und meldet / erweiteren möge / unnd auch die Heyden das Liecht anzünden mögen von uns Christgläubigen / damit man erkenne / was gläubig oder ungläubig sey / was Christ oder Heyd sey? [1612 edition]
Weil dann der Allmächtige getrewe GOtt / uns alle seine Bildnuß / mit seiner ewigen Weißheit von anbegin hero gezieret wil haben / darumben wir nicht sicuti Equi & Muli, in quibus non est intellectus werden / oder seyn sollen / und wil daß wir alle erleuchtet / wie seine Propheten / Vates und Apostolen / Sybilen / Philosophi oder Magi sancti, sollen ersterben / als Feinde des Teuffels / und erleuchte Kinder GOTTES / von anfang biß an das End / in seines Sohnes / Liecht und Glantz sollen scheinen / also das sich die Erkandnuß beydes seines Sohns / und der Natur / je mehr und mehr / als ihr begehret und meldet / erweitern möge / und auch die Heyden das Liecht anzünden mögen / von uns Christgläubigen / damit man erkenne / was gläubig oder ungläubig sey / was Christ oder Heyde sey? [1614 edition]
Weil dann der Allmächtige getrewe GOtt / uns als sein Bildnuß / mit seiner ewigen Weißheit von Anbegin hero gezieret wil haben / darumb wir nicht sicuti Equi & Muli, in quibus non est intellectus, werden / oder seyn sollen / unnd wil daß wir alle erleuchtet / wie seine Propheten / Vates unnd Apostolen / Sybillen / Philosophi oder Magi sancti, sollen ersterben / als Feinde deß Teuffels / unnd erleuchte Kinder Gottes / von Anfang biß an das End / in seines Sohns / Liecht und Glantz sollen scheinen / also daß sich die Erkanntnuß beydes seines Sohns / unnd der Natur / je mehr und mehr / als ihr begeret und meldet / erweitern möge / und auch die Heyden das Liecht anzünden mögen / von uns Christgläubigen / damit man erkenne / was gläubig oder ungläubig sey / was Christ oder Heyde sey? [1615 edition]
I realise that the German language was not fully 'established' at this period, and that you find similar spelling variations in Elizabethan English, but are the orthographical differences between these texts simply due to local dialect variations or is there something else at work? The reason I ask is that some people think there is a so-called subtraction code at work in these texts such as Bacon was known to use, i.e. subtract one text from another and then anagrammatize the letters you have left to form a phrase.
Would be grateful for any help,
Paul
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Johann Plattner
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Posted: Mon Sep 30th, 2013 02:22 pm |
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Hi Paul,
I arranged the three passages alongside within 3 columns in order to compare word for word in each line. It is a fact that at these times strong orthography rules and a general capitalization did not exist at all. You will easily recognize this between the three passages. Spellings frequently vary independently of the edition.
Examples:
Sybillen , Feindt deß Teuffels, erkandtnuß , begert (1612)
Sybilen , Feinde des Teuffels, Erkandnuß, begehret (1614)
Sybillen, Feinde deß Teuffels, Erkanntnuß, begeret (1615)
I don't think that there is hidden a substraction code or something like that.
Hope this helps.
Last edited on Mon Sep 30th, 2013 02:22 pm by Johann Plattner
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Mon Sep 30th, 2013 03:00 pm |
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Johann Plattner wrote:
Hi Paul,
I arranged the three passages alongside within 3 columns in order to compare word for word in each line. It is a fact that at these times strong orthography rules and a general capitalization did not exist at all. You will easily recognize this between the three passages. Spellings frequently vary independently of the edition.
Examples:
Sybillen , Feindt deß Teuffels, erkandtnuß , begert (1612)
Sybilen , Feinde des Teuffels, Erkandnuß, begehret (1614)
Sybillen, Feinde deß Teuffels, Erkanntnuß, begeret (1615)
I don't think that there is hidden a substraction code or something like that.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Johann. Yes I thought as much, but these cryptography guys are like a dog with a bone.
They've developed some software to compare texts on the fly. It will be interesting to see if they come up with anything.
Thanks again,
P
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Mon Sep 30th, 2013 05:25 pm |
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| One question does occur to me though, if the typesetters were working from the same manuscript or earlier printed version then why do the versions differ?
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Tom Willard
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Posted: Tue Oct 1st, 2013 06:49 am |
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From my experience with Paracelsian texts, I'd say the variants (in the use or avoidance of capital letters, for example) are entirely typical. We have to remember that writings of Paracelsus and Paracelsians like Haslmayr circulated in manuscript first of all, and that different copyists and printers had different conventions. Moreover, if Ben Franklin's experience in London is comparable to that in Cassel, where your third sample was printed in the 1615 edition of the Fama and Confessio, the conventions included a good deal of beer consumption. The "darumb wir" is a clear mistake--what the English of the age would have called a "fault escaped."
Good luck with your project! I hope to hear more about it.
P.S. I have no idea why this thread popped up today. The discussion went on five years ago. But I'll let it stand with the query about what you did with the Haslmayr texts.Last edited on Tue Oct 1st, 2013 06:53 am by Tom Willard
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Tom Willard
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Posted: Tue Oct 1st, 2013 06:57 am |
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| No, I take back the bit about the five-year-old thread. (My bad.) But Haslmayr is an interesting figure, to be sure.
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Johann Plattner
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Posted: Tue Oct 1st, 2013 08:15 am |
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Paul Ferguson wrote: One question does occur to me though, if the typesetters were working from the same manuscript or earlier printed version then why do the versions differ? I think, Tom Willard is right. It might be a mistake to presume that at these times strong rules concerning hand writing or printing may have existed. Different copyists, who transcribed from manuscripts, supposedly had the very same difficulties in deciphering sophisticated hands as modern linguists and transcribers.
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Tue Oct 1st, 2013 10:55 am |
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Tom Willard wrote:
The "darumb wir" is a clear mistake--what the English of the age would have called a "fault escaped."
No, it's in Grimm:
http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/?sigle=DWB&mode=Vernetzung&lemid=GD00833
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Tom Willard
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Posted: Wed Oct 2nd, 2013 05:51 am |
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I didn't see the conjugation "wir darumb" in Grimm -- as opposed to the "wir darumben" in the first two versions you quote. However, it does show up in Swiss writing at least:
http://books.google.com/books?id=OKJLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=%22wir+darumb%22&source=bl&ots=Ru1oKBD2Tr&sig=UeJUmN5nkWRgYsX2c77hYra9Bd4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GaZLUtSaMceBiwKsgoHADA&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22wir%20darumb%22&f=false
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Johann Plattner
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Posted: Wed Oct 2nd, 2013 06:41 am |
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Tom Willard wrote: I didn't see the conjugation "wir darumb" in Grimm -- as opposed to the "wir darumben" in the first two versions you quote. However, it does show up in Swiss writing at least:
http://books.google.com/books?id=OKJLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=%22wir+darumb%22&source=bl&ots=Ru1oKBD2Tr&sig=UeJUmN5nkWRgYsX2c77hYra9Bd4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GaZLUtSaMceBiwKsgoHADA&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22wir%20darumb%22&f=false Well, it's not in Grimm however you may find this form very often somewhere else.
https://www.google.de/search?tbm=bks&hl=de&q=wir+darumb#hl=de&q=%22wir+darumb%22&tbm=bks&tbs=bkv:p
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Wed Oct 2nd, 2013 11:57 am |
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229 onwards here confirms this:
http://tinyurl.com/naodhlc
Interesting remarks from Wiki:
"Until the 16th century, a new interregional standard developed on the basis of the East Central German and Austro-Bavarian varieties. This was influenced by several factors:
Under the Habsburg dynasty, there was a strong tendency to a common language in the chancellery.
Since Eastern Central Germany had been colonized only during the High and Late Middle Ages in the course of the Ostsiedlung by people from different regions of Germany, the varieties spoken were compromises of different dialects.
Eastern Central Germany was culturally very important, with the universities of Erfurt and Leipzig and especially with the Luther Bible translation, which was considered exemplary.
The invention of printing led to an increased production of books, and the printers were interested in using a common language to sell their books in an area as wide as possible. In the mid 16th century, when, during the Counter-Reformation, Catholicism was reintroduced in Austria and Bavaria, the Lutheran language was rejected. Instead, a specific southern interregional language was used, based on the language of the Habsburgian chancellery.
In northern Germany, the Lutheran East Central German replaced the Low German written language until mid 17th century."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography#Middle_Ages
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