Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 32

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some are probably due to later Icelandic scribes. The language is rhetorical
“Court Prose”, but with a distinctly post-classical flavour, probably due
to the scribes42. The date of the translation is 1226, according to the
preface.
2. Elis saga ok Rosarnundu. The source is the French chanson de geste
Elie de St. Giile. The saga is preserved in a Norwegian MS of the 13th
century and in numerous Icelandic MSS, the earliest of them written c.
1400. Meissner43 has compared the Icelandic and Norwegian texts and
shown in some detail how extensively the text has been modified by suc-
cessive generations of scribes. The Norwegian text is written in a flowing,
flexible “Court Prose”, with extensive use of alliteration and amplifica-
tion44 (of the type fra valcum ok vandreSum). The translator, Robert the
Abbot, is especially concerned to make things that might appear strange to
his audience more acceptable, and the only important additions to the
French text consist of explanations. Only one MS of the French source is
extant, and the source of the saga evidently had a slightly different text
in many places45; moreover, the French MS was incomplete, and Robert
had to stop in the middle of the story. The Icelandic MSS contain some
additional chapters, made up of stock phrases and incidents borrowed from
other sagas. It is, in a way, a pity that Robert has wasted so much time
on the rendering of this very rough and vulgar chanson de geste.
3. Strengleikar. The source is the Lais of Marie de France (second half
of the 12th century). The only surviving MS is Norwegian, the same as
for the Elis saga. The language of this work is the subject of Meissner’s
book Die Strengleikar, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der altnor dischen Prosa-
litteratur. The translator has undertaken a difficult, perhaps impossible
task, to render into Norwegian tales where so much depends on the lyrical
quality of the language and the delicate and sophisticated treatment of the
incidents. By extensive use of balanced sen tences, alliteration and rhythmi-
cal prose, he has succeeded in giving a certain elegance and lightness of
touch to his treatment of the contes, but the lyrical beauty is practically
always lost. Changes and additions to the French text occur, but only to
42 R. Meissner: Die Strengleikar, Halle 1902, pp. 306-309, discusses the relation-
ship between the French source and the saga.
43 Ibidem, pp. 143-88.
44 See, on this expression, E. R. Curtius: Ueber d. altfranzos. Epik, in Zeitsch. fur
roman. Philologie vol. 64, pp. 270-73, and cp. above p. 5, note 19.
43 Cp. Meissner: Die Strengleikar, p. 144 et al.