does anyone here speak english? or at least ancient greek?

actually, i'm looking for something more along the lines of someone who speaks/knows a bit of old german. i just finished reading "the name of the rose" by umberto eco (good book), which was completely translated from the italian... except for the parts where the characters are speaking a foreign language (german, latin, french, spanish, etc.), which makes some bits of it a bit hard to understand. anyways, it's set in the early 1300s, and there's one line in old (possibly middle, not sure... but a friend of mine who's majoring in german didn't recognize many of the words) german that i want to figure out:

"Er muoz gelichesame die leiter abewerfen, so er an ir ufgestigen."

if anyone can tell me what that means, i would be much obliged. all i know is that it has something to do with a ladder.