Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Síða 140
126
battie, but in such cases, unfamiliarity with the French terms may have
made the shortening necessary17, e.g. vv. 1798-1801, which describe how
the French prepare themselves before returning to Roncevaux, are sum-
marized in these words:
beir gerSu sem hann bauS (och rede sig ffara tiil runcifal S3; p. 5 1 825; cp. S
p. 27928-30; S3 p. 8534-871).
Verses shortened or summarized in this way are: 49-50, 78-79, 131-32,
265, 443-45, 533-34, 553-56 (or 540-42), 613-15, 647-48, 677-86, 710-
15, 808-09, 849-50, 883-84, 923 and 925-26, 935-36, 944-45, 1066-67,
1115-16, 1164, 1183-85, 1283-87, 1292-95, 1298-99, 1343-44, 1371-73,
1549, 1554—55, 1599-1600, 1488-89, 1500-011S, 1747-48, 1798-1801,
1817-18, 1821, 1904-05, 1906-07, 1962-63, 1968-72, 2160-61, 2184-85,
2191-92, 2219-20 (? 5 only), 2225-26, 2235-38, 2269-70, 2313-14,
2404-09, 2432-34, 2445-46, 2455-56, 2465-66, 2537-40, 2547.
Many of the smaller points omitted by this process of shortening are
insignificant; the main thing is that verses or parts of verses often change
their place (cp. point (b) in Meissner’s list of changes, above, p. 107).
Examples where the meaning of the French verse is rendered fairly cor-
rectly, but in different words, are quite common, although our translator
cannot in this respect compare with e.g. Robert the Abbot. As a very good
translation I would single out that of v. 1107:
Mal seit del coer qui el piz se cuardet!
Kms:-----ilt verSi rogu hjarta i drengraanns brjosti (a and S, shortened in Bb,
p. 50720).
Stock phrases are often rendered with a Norse stock phrase, as in vv. 4—5:
N’i ad castel ki devant lui remaigne;
Mur ne citet n’i est remés a fraindre,
Kms:
— svå at hvårki borg né kastali var så, at eigi hefSi hann undir sik lagt, né heruS
e3a tun “ (p. 484®~7).
The same words are also used in the translation of vv. 236—38.
The Kms is frequently more emphatic than the French texts, e.g. vv.
2116-18,
17 Cp. also Rol. Bor. p. 28.
78 The order of laisses in Kms differs from that of O.
“ The expression herut) eSa tun is strange, since tun means “farmyard” in Nor-