"'I pray forgiveness, Hand, if perchance in mine ignorance I misuse thy...uh...your tongue.'" (p. 321)
I could quote more. It gets better. But instead I can just refer blog readers to Poul Anderson's text. Eriau was changing at the time of the first Grand Survey so Falkayn speaks like a Merseian Shakespeare. We imagine a Wilwidh historical drama or Shakespearean pastiche. In fact, I have seen it argued that Shakespeare expressed the transition for feudalism to capitalism, thus from community to commercialism.
A few pages later, our narrators, Hloch and Arinnian, present two pages of dialogue by Falkayn. However, they present it "...in essence and in current language..." (p. 324) which, for our benefit, means in modern English. Thus, they do not really present the words he used but nevertheless they put it inside inverted commas to preserve the sense that this is conversation, not an editorial infodump.
Later, Chee Lan also speaks in Shakespearean Eriau:
"'...clearly the business hath great weight, sith ye went to the length of suborning a servant in Morruchan's very stronghold.'" (p. 334)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And Morruchan Long-ax was gracious enough not to take advantage of Falkayn's difficulties with Eriau! Instead he helped David in making clear the dangers Merseia would face from the Valemderay supernova.
Ad astra! Sean
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