Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Richt vay to the Kingdome of Heuine

XXX11
INTRODUCTION.
Gau appears to me to have been acquainted with the
German as well as with the Danish language. This is
partly proved, as is also the great care with which he per¬
formed his task, by his substituting for the “ Sabbath ” of
Pedersen the “ Feiertag” of Luther, and by his occasional
insertion of clauses which are found in the German of
Urbanus Rhegius, but had not been transferred by Peder¬
sen to his Danish version of it—as at p. 27, 1. 20, “ quhilk
is the grund and vol ”—i.e., well ; and at p. 56, 1. 15, where
the words “ I sal spousz the with me,” &c., which are left out
in the Danish, are found in Rhegius. It is further proved
by the use of Luther’s writings in his concluding epistle.
On one occasion he corrects both Pedersen and Rhegius
by substituting, at p. 67, 1. 9, Dioscorus for Diosterus.
On another occasion, however, he has either failed to
translate accurately, or else has left uncorrected a glaring
misstatement of a fact in Scripture history. He speaks at
p. 36, 1. 13, of “ Nave the sone of losue,” and not of “ losue
the sone of Nave ” or Nun. The Danish “ Nave son losue ”
is, I am told by those who know the language better than
I do, rather ambiguous, and might bear to be rendered
Nave’s son losue as well as Nave son of losue—and at any
rate, the German, Latin, and English versions of Urbanus
Rhegius all state the fact correctly. Again, at p. 52, 1. 9,
he cites the xxiiii chapter of Augustine’s treatise, “ callit
the cite of God,” without mentioning the book (xxii) of the
treatise in which the chapter is, while Pedersen specifies the
book but not the chapter.
Yet with all these variations from Pedersen’s Danish, it
will be found in Appendix D. One section refuting at considerable length
the old ideas about the Ave Maria is omitted by Gau, as is also the conclud¬
ing prayer founded on Psalm xii. I have not deemed it necessary to lengthen
the Appendix with either of these.