Talk:Historia Regum Britanniae

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Contents

[edit] Excised section

The article had said: "... although the Brut itself claims to have been translated from Latin by Walter of Oxford.[1]"

This however is not what page 68 says. It does not say, this is a translation from Latin, it says that Walter translated the book from WELSH into Latin, and then "in his old age" translated it from Latin back into Welsh again. So the original was in Welsh.

Another editor wishes to force his/her personal, uncited, unsourced opinion upon the article. That is original research. If you want to cite a scholarly discussion of the issue, then you can do that. Wjhonson 18:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Uncited? Only because you removed the cite. The so-called Brut Tysilio claims to be a translation from Latin into Welsh. I quote, "I Walter of Oxford, translated this book from Welsh into Latin, and in my old age have translated it again from Latin into Welsh." The Brut Tysilio, on its own testimony, cannot possibly be Geoffrey's source. The "original", if it existed, may have been Welsh, but the Brut Tysilio is not the original. This is cited, to page 68 of the online Cooper translation. The fact that the Brut Tysilio is a translation of Geoffrey's Latin and dates to the late 13th century, after Geoffrey, is also cited, to A. O. H. Jarman's Geoffrey of Monmouth. If you want to change cited material you'd better come up with better cites of your own. --Nicknack009 19:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. You are using half of the statement to try to *prove* the GoM could not have used Brut as his source because it was in Latin. That is false. Brut was in Welsh that's what the quote says. It was in Welsh, then translated into Latin, then translated again back into Welsh. Why? I have no idea why Walter did that, maybe he was bored. But you cannot use half a quote to try to prove the exact opposite of what the quote actually says. The Brut can indeed be Geoffrey's source, because it was originally in Welsh. That's the point you keep missing, and not only was it originally in Welsh, but the *third* edition, if you will, was once more, in Welsh. So your argument is specious from beginning to end. Wjhonson 01:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore, argumentation is a form of original research which is forbidden. You must cite some other authority, not yourself, for this line of reasoning. Wjhonson 01:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Good grief. Argument is original research? From a man who trumpets his logic skills on his user page?
Let's take this slowly. Taking the above quote from the Brut Tysilio at face value: Walter had a Welsh original. He translated it into Latin. Many years later, he took the Latin translation, and translated that into Welsh. That Welsh translation, the so-called Brut Tysilio, which survives, is, on its own testimony, not the same document as the Welsh document Walter translated into Latin, which does not survive. That original Welsh document could conceivably have been Geoffrey's source. However, as it does not survive, we cannot be certain it existed. The Brut Tysilio is, at best, a translation of a translation of Geoffrey's source. However, scholarly opinion, for example the Jarman book, which I have cited down to page number, regards it as a translation of Geoffrey.
As for your "citation needed" tag, which I have removed, that paragraph, including the assertion that few scholars take Geoffrey's claim to have had a source seriously, is cited to the introduction of Thorpe's translation, again, down to page number. You, on the other hand, have cited nothing, and even gone so far as to remove citations in an attempt to support your entirely destructive edits. --Nicknack009 13:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
If you check the policy on original research you will see that argumentation that serves to advance a position is indeed forbidden. We are at most compilers of other peoples' opinions. We are not here to state our own opinions. We can draw trivial inferences, but nothing beyond that. To your other point, the Brut Tysilio as it currently exists, that is, as a Welsh document, could indeed have been GoM's source since he only claims the book was in Welsh, and the Welsh book is certainly in Welsh. In addition, although the current version is called the Brut Tysilio that does not change the fact that it's a translation. When you do a translation, you don't change it's name. A German version of the Bible is still called the Bible. The mere fact that we have only the last version of the Brut doesn't change the issue of what GoM's source was. If he used the original Welsh version or the doubly-translated version, also in Welsh, he still used the Brut Tysilio. Wjhonson 20:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
The name Brut Tysilio was given to it by the editors of The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales in the early 1800s. The Bible is called das Bibel in German, la Biblia in Spanish, an Bíobla in Irish and y Beibl in Welsh. You know nothing of the subject, you have cited no sources, and you accuse me of "original research" for backing up what I write. You are a troll. Go away. --Nicknack009 23:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
You're playing semantics. Even if it was called MS 504 beforehand, a translation does not alter the fact that the work is the work. And you still have not provided a source for the "few scholars" claim.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ William R. Cooper, Chronicle of the Early Britons (pdf), 2002, p. 68

[edit] Third opinion

I am here as the result of a plea on Wikipedia:Third opinion. I have a few:

  • Wjohnson and Nicknack009 are in danger of violating WP:3RR, if they haven't done so already.
  • I see in the edit history a semblance of consensus so I'm not sure that this third opinion is necessary. Sources have been cited as asked; and Wjohnson's latest edit preserves the statement Nicknack009 wants.
  • Wjohnson's accusation of original research doesn't hold water, but at the same time neither does Nicknack009's accusation of trollery. See WP:Assume good faith, which neither party is doing.
  • I don't see the need to assert as fact what seems to be asserted only as evidence in the cited sources; namely, that Geoffrey of Monmouth's source was the original book. The disagreement seems to be settled not by the text of the sourced document, but by a footnote in that document, which says:

    This colophon, written by Walter of Oxford, which appears on folio 135v. of our chronicle, Jesus College MS LXI, is one of the most telling items of evidence against the modern supposition that Geoffrey of Monmouth’s claim to have translated an original book is an invention on his part. Conversely, in support of the colophon’s statement, Geoffrey of Monmouth makes no mention of a Welsh translation of the chronicle, simply because, as the colophon here tells us, that translation was made only after he had completed his Latin translation. It is, however, obvious when comparing Geoffrey’s Historia with the Welsh chronicle, that the Welsh is not in fact a straightforward translation of Geoffrey’s Latin as is often supposed and as the colophon would imply if interpreted too literally. It omits material that Geoffrey includes - Merlin’s Prophecies, for example - and includes items that Geoffrey omits - the story of Llefelys, for instance. Moreover, Geoffrey often takes licence to fill out his narrative with speeches and so on, which may or may not have been copied from other sources, but which are entirely absent in the Welsh chronicle. In other words, it would appear from Geoffrey’s additions that Jesus College MS LXI is a lot closer to the contents of the original source book than is Geoffrey’s Latin version.

  • Given what I see in the source document, the current edit as it stands seems accurate enough:

    One of these Welsh translations, the so-called Brut Tysilio, was proposed in 1917 by the archaeologist Sir William Flinders Petrie to be the ancient British book that Geoffrey translated,[1] although the Brut itself claims to have been translated from Latin by Walter of Oxford, based on his own earlier translation from Welsh to Latin.[2]

  • This opinion isn't binding, but I hope it helps. -Axlq 02:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your opinion. The problem arises because the other editor wishes to use the word "although" to try to refute the premise that the Brut was the book GoM used based on it's being a translation *from* Latin. That logic makes no sense. The basis for the refutation is not whether or not it was in Latin, but rather, that GoM's work, as you correctly pointed out, is not a straightforward translation from the Brut in any case. The situation should be clarified not muddied by a pretense to a situation which does not exist based on a faulty half-reading of a quote which doesn't state what the editor wants it to. You can't simply lift a partial quote out-of-context and then argue using it, a situation which has nothing to do with the actual known facts.
By the way, I haven't even yet attacked the position that Flinders Petrie said it was the *source* of GoM. That's still coming :) Wjhonson 02:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title of article

As this is the English Wikipedia should it not refer to the work by its English title? PatGallacher 19:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)