Death on a yellow horse: Rendering of the color term in Revelation 6:8 in Danish Bible translations

Abstract

The article investigates a case of color usage in Revelation 6:8 and various ways it has been translated into Danish. The Greek χλωρός used to describe the horse under the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse is polysemic and thus rather difficult to interpret, which resulted in numerous variations among translators. The image of Death on a pale horse has become part of the Western cultural heritage, although linguists have argued if this equivalent is indeed accurate in terms of color meaning comprised within the original lexeme. Fourteen translations, from medieval to modern, allowed to scrutinize some particular features of rendering this intricate color term in Danish, rising the main question of the study: why do so many Danish translations opt for the chromatic meaning of yellow in the given passage? In order to answer that, firstly, all of the translations were examined from the point of view of the time they were made, the primary source that the works were based upon and the special characteristics of chosen equivalents of χλωρός. Secondly, a few external sources were introduced in order to put the issue in a broader linguacultural context, such as the language, color symbolism and early Danish church art. This approach has helped to determine possible reasons for Death’s horse turning yellow, like the influence of German, deadly connotations of the Danish color term gul ‘yellow’ when referring to paleness and the bad symbolic reputation of color yellow itself.