Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: [Bleak House] Registrar, maces, petty-bags, privy purses

There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; and there are
two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or whatever they
may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning, for no crumb of
amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand),
which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The short-hand writers,
the reporters of the court, and the reporters of the newspapers
invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when Jarndyce and
Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank.
Sempre metà '80, sempre in Chancery.
Sto "registrar" è il Lord Cancelliere o è una figura a se? Come lo
potrei tradurre? Io ho trovato "conservatore del registro"...
So che non è la persona che stenografa, che invece è lo "short-hand
writer", lo stenografo. E altri sono "reporter".
Altri termini che mi sono oscuri:
maces, petty-bags e privi purses.
Allora, mace è mazza e, penso, che in questo caso sia una short per
mace-bearer, ovvero mazziere.
Petty bags mi lascia basito, nonostante abbia trovato riferimenti sul
web di petty bags legato a chancery.
Chancery: Petty Bag Office: Commissions and Inquisitions of Lunacy
Court of Chancery: Petty Bag Office: Common Law Remembrance Rolls
Privi purse è l'appannaggio reale, quindi immagino che con la s del
plurale, visto che parla di persone, si riferisca a coloro che devono
provvedere a tali cose.
Più che trovare il termine corretto per tradurre, sicuramente chi l'ha
tradotto l'avrà già fatto, vorrei capire che sono.
Per fortuna che un'analisi sì dettagliata la dovrò fare per pochi
capitoli...
Scusate se ho fatto troppi post su tale libro :(
Sebastiano
-- 
Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle,
with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes-
gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.

Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank.
Dickens is mocking the English legal system with all its deference to
rank and its archaic symbols and symbolism.  This case "Jarndyce and
Jarndyce" is obviously a long-running and boring one.
The registrar was/is responsible for the running of the court, similar
to the "clerk of the court".
The mace is an actual mace which is carried into the court in front of
the judge as a symbol of power.  Dickens doesn't really know what the
"velvet bags" at the front are, so he uses names that he knows apply in
situations like that.
"Privy" is an archaic version of "private" - so "privy purse" was a
private purse - for the use of the monarch/judge, etc.
It may  be difficult to translate them into Italian because the English
legal system, originating from Anglo-Saxon/Norman Common Law is very
different to the Italian system.
Cheers
-- 
John G Davies

situations like that.
[cut]
Again, I've read today and the translation is:
maces --> mazzieri
petty-bags --> uscieri
privi purses --> messi
Is there a logic connection or do I have to assume that the translator
just wrote something to fill the gap?
Thanks for you help.


just wrote something to fill the gap?
I've never taught English literature, so I don't know the subtle
meanings behind "names" like these.  Perhaps in legal circles or in
Victorian times "mace-bearers" are/were known as "maces", "ushers" as
"petty bags" and "bailiffs" as "privy purses" (perhaps due to the
symbols that they carried???)
The passage does make good sense with mace-bearer, usher and bailiff
replacing the original.


replacing the original.
I'll ask my English literature teacher on Monday. I've already told
her about the "posh British barrister" thing and she didn't know it
[thank you, Mary. ^_^]. Btw, that character - I suppose - is a
solicitor, and not a barrister.
Thanks for the useful informations.


 solicitor, and not a barrister.
The one in court who said "M'lud"?
No, he'd be a barrister.
Solicitors were only very recently granted the right to appear in the
High Court, and it's still very unusual.
-- 
Mary

High Court, and it's still very unusual.
Oh, I see. I though it has to be a solicitor because another
character, way more important than the one who said "M'lud", is
described as "solicitor" by an angry suitor.
"There again!" said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. "The
system! I am told on all hands, it's the system. I mustn't look to
individuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and say, 'My
Lord, I beg to know this from you-is this right or wrong? Have you the
face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am dismissed?'
My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer the system. I
mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
and say to him when he makes me furious by being so cool and
satisfied-as they all do, for I know they gain by it while I lose,
don't I?-I mustn't say to him, 'I will have something out of some one
for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' HE is not responsible. It's the
system. But, if I do no violence to any of them, here-I may! I don't
know what may happen if I am carried beyond myself at last! I will
accuse the individual workers of that system against me, face to face,
before the great eternal bar!"
In another chapter, describing the Chancery:
On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or
three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune
by it, ought to be-as are they not?-ranged in a line, in a long matted
well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom of it)
between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with bills,
cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues,
references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly nonsense,
piled before them.
Anche nel pezzo dei maces, petty-bags e privy purses parla di
solicitor.
Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon
besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three
counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before
mentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown;
and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or
whatever they may be, in legal court suits.
From the biography:
In 1827, Dickens took a job as a legal clerk. By 1829, he had become a
free-lance reporter at Doctor's Commons Courts. He had become a very
successful shorthand reporter of Parliamentary debates in the House of
Commons and began work as a reporter for a newspaper, in 1832. During
his time as a reporter he would develop his skills to write very
detailed and factual-like stories.
Mi chiedo, se i solicitor non potevano entrare nella corte e parlare,
perché parla di solicitor e non di barrister? Oppure ho capito male?
Ah, un'altra cosa. Fare il "solicitor" è una tappa prima di diventare
- se ci si riesce - barrister oppure sono due cose separate come, ad
esempio, infermiere e medico?


described as "solicitor" by an angry suitor.
In the English legal system if you have a complaint against someone, you
take it to a solicitor.  He does the legal work, if the case goes to the
High Court then he has/had to employ a barrister to present the case to
the judge.
(Is it any wonder that George Bernard Shaw said "the professions are a
conspiracy against the people"?)


privi purses --> messi
A solicitor friend confirmed that these names were used until the recent
reforms.


reforms.
Well, thank you! 
