Internets, do you speak french?

[highlyeccentric]

Because I have here a phrase which I cannot understand in either OF *or* modern French, and I don't think anyone else can either, because my English translations don't look much like the original.

Se je t'en oy parler jamais,
Ja n'i ara fors que t'en fuises.

First line is fine - "if I ever hear you speak of this...". Second line though, I'm stumped. I'm getting "then it will only *fors* that you *flee/had fled*"

The modern french translation I have of the second line is tu n'auras qu'à t'enfuir, which I do not understand either. I thought ne... que was an "only" construction? I don't know what to make of the à+infinitive construction (it's clearly not the same tense as the OF, but what on earth it IS i do not know, and my Coffman isn't telling me). "You will have to flee?" "You will only flee?"

The two English translations I have give variants on "you'll be sorry you didn't run away". Which sounds nice, but I'm not seeing the negation applied to fuises - it's applied to "i ara fors".

Any french-speakers care to explicate the modern french translation for me? If I can figure out what it says, I can probably sort out the OF.

Damn, I need an OF dictionary.

Comments

[mrlachatte.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking the second line is something like "you will only flee to yourself" ie. alone, nobody can help you.

[frith]

Nope, fleeing to yourself is recursive and would have to expressed with "tu", "te" or "toi" twice in the same sentence, namely: "you will only flee to yourself" would be Tu ne fuiras qu'à toi-même. The word en in the sentence clearly indicates the action opposes an outside entity and is not a self-directed action.

[highlyeccentric]

The word en in the sentence clearly indicates the action opposes an outside entity and is not a self-directed action.

I can't actually guarantee that it does, in Old French! A bunch of the pronouns and prepositions and adverbs shift around mysteriously, meaning nine hundred different things and sometimes just showing up for fun or emphasis or stress patterns.

[highlyeccentric]

Ahhh... yes. That's possible! *kicks it*