Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Qupperneq 134

120
1339 (cp. 1324), 1412 (cp. 1396), 1716-17 (cP. 1708), 1732 (cp. 1727),
1786 (cp. 1764), 1788 (cp. 1766), 2132 (cp. 2111-13, 2116), 2145 (cp.
2133), 2273 (cp. 2270), 2351-54 (cp. 2306-08)14.
Many of the omissions discussed up to this point, though by no means
all, generally improve the composition of the tale when told in prose as
a saga. The following groups contain many verses the loss of which in the
translation means the omission of many vivid details.
The “unimportant facts” left out by the translator are such as the one
mentioned in v. 90, that the mules on which the messengers rode had been
sent to Marsilie by li reis de Suatilie, or the bainz, que Deus pur vos i
(i.e. at Aix) fist, in v. 154, or the faet that it was Roland who had de-
stroyed the city of Valterne (O Galne), in v. 663. In some cases there are
additions in place of the omitted verse, which may mean that the French
source had a different verse, and in other cases the translator may have
misunderstood the verse, or not seen the point of an obscure allusion. This,
I think, is the case with v. 1565, where, after it has been said that Valda-
brun had 400 drodmunz under his command, it is added that,
N’i ad eschipre quis cleimt se par loi nun.
The same explanation probahly applies in the case of the omission of the
much-discussed v. 83015, and of many other verses as well.
14 I should like to stress the faet that some of these “repetitions” can only be
regarded as such by someone who does not really understand the structure of the
poem. Thus, when Marsilie’s nephew is about to attack the French, he first chal-
lenges them in a short speech:
1191: “Feluns Franceis, hoi justerez as noz.
Trait vos ad ki a guarder vos out.
Fols est li reis ki vos laissat as porz.
Enquoi perdrat France dulce sun los, etc.
Then Roland attacks and kills him, and afterwards refutes his charges in the very
same words:
1207: “Ultre, culvert! Caries n’est mie fol,
Ne tra'isun unkes amer ne volt.
Il fist que proz qu’il nus laissad as porz.
Oi n’en perdrat France dulce sun los, etc.
In Kms v. 1209 is omitted, and my point is that, to the translator, who did not
understand the parallelism, vv. 1208-10 appeared as an unnecessary repetition of
vv. 1192-94, and he shortened the passage by omitting v. 1209, thus spoiling the
complete correspondence between the two laisses.
15 Cp. G. Bertoni: Nota sul v. 830 della Ch. de R. in Archivum Romanicum,
vol. IX p. 216, and M. Roques in Romania 54 pp. 578-79.
A