Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Page 132
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5. Descriptions, epithets, stock phrases (e.g. the stereotyped descriptions
of the single combats during the first part of the battie, vv. 1188-1395)11.
6. Recapitulationsl2.
7. Various speeches, soliloquies, empty boasting, exaggerations, etc. To
this class belong the exclamatio and the apostrophe, as well as the inter-
iectio ex persona poetae of the rhetorical manuals13.
The elaborations usually mean that the poet says in two verses what
might easily have been said in one. A typical example is vv. 426-27:
Par grant saver cumencet a parler
Curae celui ki ben faire le set,
E dist al rei:
translated:
425: Guinelun jarl
426: hof mål sitt vitrliga mjok:
428: “Konungr”, segir hann-----(p. 49423).
Another example shows a different sort of elaboration:
570: L’empereiir tant li dunez aveir
571: N’i ait Franceis ki tot ne s’en merveilt.
Kms: Gef heldr konungi fjårhluti-----(p. 49715).
A typical amplification is v. 1674:
1673: Li arcevesque est mult bon chevaler,
1674: N’en ad meillor en tere ne suz cel;
Kms: AfburSar goSr riddari er erkibyskup (p. 5168-9).
The verses of this type that have been omitted are the following: 19,
48, 60, 98, 245, 301, 427, 429, 571, 579, 687, 759, 772, 906, 1025, 1342,
1368-69, 1607, 1674, 1706-07, 1822-23, 1993, 2015, 2045, 2112-13,
2151, 2276, 2284, 2317, 2431, 2461-62, 2527.
Anticipations are less frequent, but they are of the same type as the
omissions already considered. Examples are:
523: Il est mult vielz, si ad sun tens uset;
524: Men escient dous cenz anz ad passet.
Kms: ek ætla, at hann sé vel 200 vetra gamall (p.49628).
11 Curtius, ibidem, p. 220-23.
12 Cp. Nyrop: Den oldfranske Heltedigtning (Copenhagen 1883), pp. 398-99.
13 Cp. Curtius, ibidem, pp. 219-20 and 451, and also idem: Ueber die altfranzo-
sische Epik, Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie 64, pp. 270-74, with references
to Faral’s edition of the more important Artes poeticae of the 12th and 13th cen-
turies.