On the prose of “Grisostomo pavese”, I. The ‘Paraphrase of Neminem laedi nisi a se ipso’ (chapters I-XV, XXXIII-XXXVI)

Abstract

The article, the first of two closely related contributions, presents an overall analysis of the prose of the oldest document from Pavia, the so-called “Grisostomo pavese” (1342), witnessed by a single manuscript that was destroyed in 1904, but of which we have a 19th-century edition edited by W. Foerster. The work, in prose and by an anonymous author, takes the form of a vernacularisation-paraphrase of the Neminem laedi nisi a se ipso, a homily by St John Chrysostom; but the large central part of the text (chapters XVI-XXXII of the new edition now being prepared) consists of probably original material, unrelated to the Latin homily. This first article therefore deals only with the veritable vernacularisation (chapters I-XV and XXXIII-XXXVI) and highlights the translation methods of the Pavia Anonymous: the marked tendency to amplify and expand the source text; the use of domestic and popular lexicon and similes that contribute to a lowering of the stylistic register with respect to the base text. Strategies that enliven the text and increase its level of expressiveness.