Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 47

[cahn]

We haven't had a new post since before December 25, so obligatory Yuletide link to this hilarious story of Frederick the Great babysitting his bratty little brother, with bonus Fritz/Fredersdorf!

Comments

Peter and Ariane's marriage contract

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm reading it because the Kurrent is so clean. I will not be writing it up for salon, because it's SO boring, just finances (at least so far)--it's a prenup. But I had to report that there are references to Ariane's mother as "Gnädiger Mamma" and "Frau Mamma", which is hilarious to see in something as formal as this! I will report if I find anything else interesting or entertaining.

Also, I wish to complain that the document being so formal is a pain, in that every capital letter is a series of flourishes I cannot decipher, and because it's German and especially because it's 18th century German, SO MANY words are capitalized. Either I can guess the first letter from context or else I move on and silently wish I were just a little more fluent in German. But the practice is helping nonetheless, and one day I will read more interesting and less cleanly written things and be able to report them to salon.

I also read Crown Prince future FW3's lengthy and detailed description of what he did the day of Fritz's death, also in clean Kurrent (because it's a copy made by a secretary for the archives). It is boring. SO boring. It covers every single detail of where FW3 stood, and where FW3 sat when he dined, and NOTHING about what happened to the dogs. It was my last hope for someone to tell us that, and is why I ordered it last year. Alas!

However, there are at least a couple things of interest to salon (included by accident, I assume :P), so I will write those parts up when I've had a little more Kurrent practice (I'm still skipping words I can't immediately get rather than figuring them out).

Re: Peter and Ariane's marriage contract

[selenak]

Future FW3: I empathize. Volz includes that description in his "Fritz in the eyes of his contemporaries" selection (not to be confused with the edited much later by someone else "Fritz and MT as described by their contemporaries" collection), and presumably shortened it already, and it still reads boring. (I remember looking at it back when we wondered about what happened with the dogs.) But of course it always could have been possible that something was edited out.

Gnädige Mamma and Frau Mamma immediately brings Fontane novellas and novels from a century later in my mind! His Brandenburg nobility characters use these kind of expressions a lot.

Re: Peter and Ariane's marriage contract

[mildred_of_midgard]

presumably shortened it already, and it still reads boring. (I remember looking at it back when we wondered about what happened with the dogs.) But of course it always could have been possible that something was edited out.

I just compared the two, and some stuff was cut in Volz's ellipses, but nothing interesting.

Re: Peter and Ariane's marriage contract

[mildred_of_midgard]

Omg. I need to vent about the handwriting.

Me: "Wiltber"...that's not a word!

Me: Omg, it's "Wiltber" again. I *must* be reading it wrong. The "l" could be a "t", but as for the rest...WTF.

Me: "...betrübten Wiltben"...omg, it can only be "Witwe"! The "tb" is a "w"!! I can't believe after all this time I was capable of confusing a "tb" and a "w", but these freaking flourishes on this freaking contract!!

Okay, I had to get that out of my system. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.

ETA: Btw, I've been meaning to say, I had figured out from context already that they were talking about what happens if Ariane dies first, what happens if Peter dies first, what happens if there are kids, what happens if the survivor remarries...and that was sad, considering all the documents in this collection that have to do with life after Peter's death (e.g. the inventory), etc. :(

(Yes, given all that, I should have figured out "Witwe" sooner, but I'm staring at it in disbelief and the "t" looks nothing like how the "t" is written anywhere else, the second half of the "w" is exactly like every "b" in the text, the first half of the "w" is *sort* of different than the usual "t", but same idea...I'm waiting for one of the Germans in salon to come along and tell me about this other archaic word that isn't "Wiltbe" but also isn't "Witwe". :P (The first letter need not be a "W"; it looks like a V, and I'm just guessing from context, because "Viltbe" isn't a word I know either.)

...Sheesh. :P)

Widow of ETA: No, the first letter looks like the "W"s in "Wort für Wort." But all the many, many lowercase "w"s look nothing like "tb." So what gives? Is "Wiltbe" a word that neither I, nor Google, nor Duden know? If the "l" is actually a "t" (that looks nothing like a "t", but maybe a double "t" looks like "lt"), is "Wittbe" a word that I also cannot find? "Wittwe", sure, I've seen that spelling. But "Wittbe?"

Re: Peter and Ariane's marriage contract

[selenak]

„Wittib“ is an old fashioned variation of „Witwe“. „Wittiben“ is probably the Genetiv or Dativ - as in, for example, „dann gebührt der Wittiben“ etc.

Sometimes, though rarely and in historical novels, Wittib is used even today. But it‘s really old fashioned.

Re: Peter and Ariane's marriage contract

[mildred_of_midgard]

Wooow. Okay, well, that makes sense. After enough handwriting comparison, I was starting to convince myself it couldn't be Kurrent's fault after all. I have looked closely and can report there is no "i" between the "tt" and the "b", but okay, at least we're talking about an actual word now!

Thank you for clarifying, that was going to drive me crazy all night. :D