Abstract
The article investigates the Slavic translation of Byzantine metaphors in liturgical hymns, as testified in East-Slavic manuscripts of the daily menaion from the 11th to 13th century. The investigation demonstrates that this did occasionaly give rise to the distortion of images, for example due to the change in gender from the initial Greek lexeme to its Slavic equivalent (λυχνία – свѣтильникъ), due to misunderstandings of special Greek termini (ὁλοκαύτωμα, ἀγωνοθέτης) or to imprecisions in translating names of particular realia like musical instruments or flowers. But on the whole the Slavic translators adequately reproduced their Greek model texts, even if their imagery was borrowed from thematic fields less familiar to Slavic culture. Especially with regard to the images, taken from classical athletic games and navigation, in many cases it is clear that the Slavic translators of Byzantine liturgical hymns did not always translate those metaphors literally but rather interpreted them faithfully, obviously in order to make those hymns easier for Slavs to understand.
