Waltharius

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Waltharius

Waltharius is a

Vergil's Aeneid
.

History

Our knowledge of the author,

920, since he was probably no longer young when he became deacon (in charge of ten monks) in 957. He died in 973.[2]

Waltharius was dedicated by Geraldus to

Aribo, archbishop of Mainz. The poem was probably based on epic songs now lost, so that if the author was still in his teens when he wrote it he must have possessed considerable and precocious powers.[2]

Synopsis

Waltharius, painting by Karl (or Carl) Jordan, 1904 (Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art)

Waltharius was the son of Alphere, ruler of

Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse. When Attila invaded the west, the western princes are represented as making no resistance. They purchased peace by offering tribute and hostages. King Gibicho, here described as a Frankish king, gave Hagano as a hostage (of Trojan race, but not, as in the Nibelungenlied, a kinsman of the royal house) in place of his infant son Guntharius; the Burgundian king Herirīcus, his daughter Hiltgunt; and Alphere, his son Waltharius.[2]

Hagano and Waltharius became brothers in arms, fighting at the head of Attila's armies, while Hiltgunt was put in charge of the queen's treasure. Presently Guntharius succeeded his father and refused to pay tribute to the

Vosges mountains (Vosagus). Waltharius, mentioned as being armed in fine armor made by the legendary smith Wieland, engaged the Nibelungen knights one at a time, until all were slain but Hagano. The latter held aloof from the battle due to his vows of friendship with Waltharius, and was only persuaded by Guntharius to attack his comrade due to Waltharius' killing of some of family members. So Hagano and Guntharius devised a plan to wait until the second day, when they lured Waltharius from the strong position of the day before and attacked him together. All three were incapacitated, but their wounds were bound up by Hiltgunt and they separated as friends.[2]

Commentary

The essential part of this story is the series of single combats. The occasional incoherences of the tale make it probable that many changes have been introduced in the legend. The

Heorrenda). The fight between the forces of father and lover only ceased at sundown, to be renewed on the morrow, since each evening Hildr raised the dead by her incantations. This has been interpreted as a form of the old myth of the daily recurring struggle between light and darkness. The songs sung by Hiltgunt in Waltharius during her night watches were probably incantations, a view strengthened by the fact that in a Polish version the glance of Helgunda is said to have inspired the combatants with new strength.[3] Hiltgunt has retained nothing of Hild's fierceness, but the fragment of the Anglo-Saxon Waldere shows more of the original spirit. In Waltharius Hiltgunt advises Waltharius to fly; in Waldere she urges him to the combat.[2]

One of the most extensive studies of the poem is by Dennis M. Kratz, who argues that the poem makes sophisticated use of allusions to its Classical sources to satirise the heroic ethics of its protagonists.[4]

Manuscripts

  • Gemblours MS (Brussels)
  • Hirschau MS (Karlsruhe)
  • Regensburg MS (Stuttgart)
  • Epternach MS (Paris)
  • Salzburg MS (Vienna)
  • Metlach MS (Trier)
  • Engelberg fragment

There are two fragments of a 9th-century Old English version, known as Waldere, consisting of 15 lines each, discovered in 1860, edited by George Stephens.

Editions and translations

Waltharius was first edited by F. Ch. J. Fischer (Leipzig, 1780) and Fr. Molter (Karlsruhe). Later and more scholarly editions are by:

V. Scheffel
, A. Holder (Stuttgart, 1874), Marion Dexter Learned (Baltimore, 1892, the entire corpus of texts concerning the Saga of Walther of Aquitaine), and Karl Strecker (Weimar, 1951).

Dennis Kratz produced an English edition and translation under the title, Waltharius, and Ruodlieb, ed. and trans. by Dennis M. Kratz, The Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series A, 13 (New York: Garland, 1984). More recently, the Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations series has published a new Latin text and English translation, authored by Abram Ring: Waltharius. Edition, Translation, and Introduction by Abram Ring, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations 22 (Louvain: Peeters, 2016).

Another English translation is Brian Murdoch's, Walthari: A Verse Translation of the Medieval Latin Waltharius, Scottish Papers in Germanic Studies, 9 (Glasgow, 1989). There are German translations by F. Linnig (Paderborn, 1885), H. Althof (Leipzig, 1896),[2] and Karl Langosch (Darmstadt, 1967).

Influence

See also

Scheffel's novel Ekkehard
(Stuttgart, 1887); B. Symons, Deutsche Heldensage (Strassburg, 1905).

With Waltharius compare the Scottish ballads of "Earl Brand" and "Erlinton" (F.J. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, i. 88 seq.).

References

  1. ^ Gereon Becht-Jördens: Sprachliches in den Vitae S. Wiboradae (II). Dabei: Ein Walthariuszitat in der jüngeren Vita.In: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 24/25, 1989/1990, p. 1-9, esp. p. 7-9
  2. ^ a b c d e f  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Waltharius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 298–299.
  3. ^ The earliest Polish version is included in the Chronicon Boguphali Episcopi13th-14th century (Ward and Waller, eds., The Cambridge History of English Literature 1907, vol. I, "The 'Waldhere' fragments", p. 35).
  4. ^ Dennis M. Kratz, Mocking Epic: Waltharius, Alexandreis and the Problem of Christian Heroism (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, 1980).

Further reading

External links

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