Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 149

GRIPLA148
fierce anger and vengeance because your evil behaviour has roused
his wrathful anger against us].62
This passage notably uses reiði ‘anger’ on three occasions, once when
Ambáles assures Tamerláus victory since God is angry at Bastíanus, and
twice when Bastíanus’ own men interpret the sound of Tosti’s horn as re-
vealing God’s wrath. In Oddverjaannáll Timur justifies his seemingly harsh
behaviour by saying that he is not a man, but rather Reidi Gudz ‘God’s
anger’. The text of Ambáles saga presented here seems to draw upon this
famed comment, but makes it more acceptable and less arrogant: by plac-
ing the words in the mouths of Ambáles and Bastíanus’ men, Tamerláus
seems not to be ‘blowing his own hornʼ, so to speak. Moreover, the idea
that Tamerláus is a tool of God’s anger is more acceptable when placed in
the context of his confronting the malevolent Bastíanus, rather than tram-
pling olive-branch-bearing maidens.
The second of the two passages refers back to those olive branches and
occurs when Bastíanus, having heard Tosti’s horn, puts together a group
of men and sends them to investigate the army which has recently arrived
in the vicinity of Constantinople:
kongur skipadj 30 mónnum til forvitnj, alla vel vopnada, þeirra for-
ingi het Taliruz, honum treisti kongur vel vpp ä frödleik, frægd og
fram góngu, og er hann kom so nær, ad hann sä her budir og merki
Tamerlans kongs Skot honum skielk i bringu, tok nu oliu kuistu,
og menn hanz sier i hendur, og ridu ad her voctrunum, var honum
Rum gefit, kvad tulk ad finna, liet kongur Ambales honum mæta ad
Andsuórum, Ambales spyr hann nafnz og erinds, enn hann sagdi
sem var, Ambáles sagdi honum þu mätt segja herra þynum, ad kongur
Tamerlan af scytia sie yfir hann komin[n] med sinn her, ad hefna
svjvirdingar, og dóda sistur sinnar og annara þeira illsku verka,
sem cristnum mónnum giortt hefur, og ä hann óngvan kost, lifs nie
vægdar, og vogi hann sig ad veria, þä mä hann ozz mæta, nær buin
þicist: Taleriuz sagdi ad lytt mundi hann ottazt skial þetta, og mundi
hanz ei langt ad byda. Skilldu þeir talid63
62 Compare the very similar passage in Gollancz, Hamlet in Iceland, 150. Also, the correspond-
ing passages in Ambáles rímur, 204–05; Uecker, ed., Der nordische Hamlet, 156.
63 AM 521 c 4to, f. 6v.