WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

acting in likeness or similitude to a beast and not because his shape is as a beast in nature, any
mention of his braying and beastly prayer is unnecessary.
The Portuguese translation turns Gower’s tale from a parody of moral fables into a direct
presentation of morality, and it excises the image of a braying king, lest his contrition be thought
of as inhuman or worse as purely comical. Thus in the Portuguese, Nebuchadnezzar does not
repent by loudly “wailende” ‘wailing’ in his beastly voice. Rather very politely, in his “bestial
maneira” ‘beastly ability,’ he raises his “mãos” ‘hands’ and not clawed feet while he offers “su
oraçom” ‘his prayer’ and “seu planto” ‘his complaint’ to heaven.
Yet, even in rendering Gower’s story as morally direct as its biblical source, the
Portuguese translation retains a trace of his take on the Nebuchadnezzar episode if only in slight
logical inconsistencies. For example, the Portuguese translates “cahiu em chãao pero que lhe
minguo a falla, alçou as mãos” ‘he fell on the ground but because he lacked speech, he raised his
hands’ [my emphasis] from the English “he gan doun bowe,/And thogh him lacke vois and
speche” ‘he began to bow/although he lacked voice and speech.’ By introducing contrast of
kneeling and voice, the English original shows an implied cause and effect. The king is a beast,
and, being unable to speak, he must raise his hands to show an outward confession of contrition.
In the Portuguese, however, a reader is simply left to wonder why the king lacks speech and why
this absence is tied to his praying or what his silence has to do with his kneeling position.
Almost anticipating a reader’s questions over its depiction of Nebuchadnezzar’s prayer,
the Portuguese renders the English description of Nebuchadnezzar’s kneeling, “he kneleth in his
wise” as “o milhor que podia” ‘the best that he could.’ The Portuguese suggests that there is a
natural awkwardness to Nebuchadnezzar’s ability to kneel that explains the extended physical
description of the king’s kneeling. Of course, the English tells us that the king has a hard time
134