『바를람과 요사팥』라틴어 두 판본의 비교

Abstract

Barlaam et Iosaphat, the Latin version of the story of the Saints Barlaam and Josaphat in the Middle Ages, is handed down to us in two independent versions. The first version of the text is preserved in a single manuscript of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli in Naples (MS. VIII. B. 10). The other version, or the vulgata version, is found in about sixty manuscripts copied in from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and this Latin vulgata version was translated into European languages in the Middle Ages, including French and Spanish. Both the Naples and the vulgata version are in turn the translation of the Greek text, which first appeared in the tenth century. The great numbers of manuscripts and editions of the text in various European languages and also the vast area where the text is found prove the popularity of the text in the Middle Ages. Barlaam et Iosaphat is a hagiography of the Saint Josaphat, who was converted into Christianity in his youth and came to lead a hermit's life in the desert and then later became a Saint. This text contains many parables, religious debates, numerous biblical quotations, and, interestingly enough, some traces of the Buddha legend. The motives from the Buddha legend are mainly found in the first five chapters of Barlaam et Iosaphat, which are about the young prince's experience of the bitterness of life by seeing the sick, the disabled, and the aged person for the first time in his life. In this article I attempted to compare the two Latin versions of the text, focusing on the part of Chapter five, where the motives from the Buddha legend are most visible. In comparing the two versions, I examined both of the Latin versions against the Greek original and thereby found several different renderings in each Latin version of the Greek words and phrases. It seems that the vulgata version is more faithful to the Greek original, translating almost word by word. On the other hand the Naples version shows more additions to and paraphrases of the Greek sentences, thus creating not a mere translated text, but a new Latinized version of the text, stylistically finer and more finished.