Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 138
124
Mult dulcement a regreter le prist:
“Sire cumpaign, tant mar fustes hardiz!
and ending with Roland’s pasmeisun, has been left out, while a similar
passage in vv. 2207-14 has been retained, probably because it gives a num-
ber of concrete details about Oliver’s family and exploits.
Omissions of this type are: vv. 446, 777-79, 781, 1935-38, 1959-60,
1975-77, 2001-02, 2026-30, 2062-63, 2147-48, 2195-99, 2221, 2307-08,
2310-11, 2412-13, 2484-86.
I have discussed only omissions of whole verses, not similar omissions of
parts of verses. This is because it is easier to deal with whole verses in an
examination of a chanson de geste, but it is clear that the same explanation
as has here been applied to verses can also be applied, automatically, in the
case of omissions of parts of verses which contain epithets, repetitions, un-
important phrases, etc. The more important of these shortened verses are
listed below, in the next section of this chapter, but it would be of little
practical use to classify these verses under the same headings as those used
in this section.
Furthermore the dividing up of omissions into various groups according
to the method followed above is not at all points satisfactory, since some
of the groups overlap to a considerable extent. Many “phrases” are also
“repetitions”, and the distinction between “repetition” and “elaboration”
is often arbitrary. I hope I have succeeded in assigning the greater part
of the omissions to the groups in which they really belong: it must then
be of minor importance if some of them might, for different, but equally
plausible reasons, have been placed in another group. The purpose of this
discussion is to eliminate as far as possible the “unimportant” omissions,
i.e. verses which, from the point of view of our translator, may have ap-
peared superfluous because they did not contain facts of importance.
V
Differences between the saga and the French versions
The differences between Kms and the French texts are of two kinds:
those in which Kms agrees with one or another of the later French MSS,
but dif fers from O, and those in which the saga dif fers from all existing
versions of the poem. The first type will be treated in a later chapter
(Chapter 6). The main groups of differences are: