Re: Overmod

Dirk Thierbach wrote:
Christopher Kreuzer <spamgard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That would be his analysis in the /Ofermod/ essay that follows "The
Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son" and that can be
paraphrased as follows, starting with this quote:

Thanks.

No problem. It was interesting re-reading that essay again.

So I guess we should now ask what the word "mod" means in Danish,
and its equivalent in the Germanic languages. [...]

That online etymology site says /mod/ is "A much more vigorous word
in Anglo-Saxon than currently, and used widely in compounds (e.g.
modcræftig 'intelligent', modful 'proud')."

So what do people here think the German and Dutch words 'mut and
'moed' mean?

In compounds, German 'Mut' retains the meaning 'spirit', and is still
used widely: 'übermut', 'Hochmut' (arrogance, pride, as in
Anglo-Saxon), 'Wankelmut' (indecisiveness), 'Unmut' (ill humour,
displeasure), 'Wehmut' (sadness, melancholy), and probably more. By
itself it now only means 'boldness, courage'.

It must be terribly difficult to untangle different meanings as they
gradually change over centuries and in different languages. It is hard
enough communicating slight differences in meaning to contemporaries, let
alone deducing them in long-dead languages.

It must also be terribly easy to reverse the process. To know that mut in
German means boldness/courage, and then to think that ofermod means
overboldness. But literary context may be the best means of reconstructing
meaning, though Tolkien deducing it on the basis of two data points makes me
terribly nervous, though I am reassured by Shippey commenting that Tolkien
had the nose of a bloodhound when sensing old meanings of words. But still,
I wonder sometimes.

"[...] But /mod/, though it may contain or imply courage, does not
mean 'boldness' any more than than Middle English /corage/. It means
'spirit', or when unqualified 'high spirit', of which the most usual
manifestation is pride. But in /ofer-mod/ it is qualified, with
disapproval: /ofermod/ is in fact always a word of condemnation.
[...]"

I guess that also still applies in German: 'über' very often means
'too much'.


Ah, now über, for me at least, is strongly associated with words like
übermensch, and from there to the unfortunate concept of Herrenvolk:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrenvolk

And further to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_Germany

But this is getting way off topic.

Going back to ofer/uber, the English equivalent, I guess, would be 'over'.
Let's look at the etymology of that word:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=over

P.Gmc. *uberi
O.E. ofer
O.S. obar
O.Fris. over
O.N. yfir
O.H.G. ubar
Ger. über
Goth. ufar
PIE *uper

"Widely used as a prefix in O.E. and other Germanic languages."

Interestingly, "super" (as in superman, cf. ubermensch), comes from the same
root, as you can see from the Proto-Indo-European "uper", which is where the
sense of "above" and "beyond" comes from.

So "overmuch", "excessive", superior, on top of (over), all comes from the
same family of words and meanings. No wonder /ofermod/ needs such care in
translation!

Christopher


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