Вальхариус: Латын дастаны және авторлық туралы мәліметтер

Latin epic poem

Waltharius is a Latin epic poem founded on German popular tradition relating the exploits of the Visigothic hero Walter of Aquitaine. While its subject matter is taken from early medieval Germanic legend, the epic stands firmly in the Latin literary tradition in terms of its form and the stylistic devices used. Thus, its 1456 verses are written in dactylic hexameter (the traditional meter of Latin epic poetry) and the poem includes copious references to (and phrases borrowed from) various Latin epics of antiquity, especially Vergil's Aeneid.

Our knowledge of the author, Ekkehard, a monk of St. Gall, is due to a later Ekkehard, known as Ekkehard IV (died 1060), who gives some account of him in the Casus Sancti Galli (cap. 80). Ekkehard IV's account is much discussed among scholars and seems to be confirmed by another monk of St. Gall, Herimannus, the author of the later (ca 1075) life of St Wiborada of St Gall where he cites verse 51 of the Waltharius. According to Ekkehard IV, the poem was written by the earlier Ekkehard, generally distinguished as Ekkehard I, for his master Geraldus in his schooldays. This would date the poem no later than 920, since he was probably no longer young when he became deacon (in charge of ten monks) in 957. He died in 973. Waltharius was dedicated by Geraldus to Erchanbald, bishop of Strasbourg (fl. 965–991), but manuscripts of it were in circulation before that time. Ekkehard IV stated that he corrected the Latin of the poem, the Germanisms of which offended his patron 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. 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.

Waltharius was first edited by F. Ch. J. Fischer (Leipzig, 1780) and Fr. Molter (Karlsruhe). Later and more scholarly editions are by: Jacob Grimm Lateinische Gedichte des Mittelalters (Göttingen, 1838); R. Peiper (Berlin, 1873); 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), and Karl Langosch (Darmstadt, 1967).

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. ).