Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Page 148
134
explain how the misunderstanding has arisen. I agree with M. Aebischer
that the French source probably had v. 2048 immediately after v. 2039,
but I am rather doubtful about his theory that the French MS had li filz
Droun instead of li niés Droun in v. 204826.
I can only offer two tentative explanations: one is that the translator
has misunderstood the second senz in v. 2039, which may have been written
sez with the nasal marked by a stroke above the e, and since a second senz
was not strictly necessary, he may have got the idea that the word meant
s (is) n(i)és. He knows the word niés quite well, Roland is continually
referred to as the “sister’s son” of Charlemagne, and the peculiar reading
nez for niés would scarcely have disturbed him. Another and less likely
explanation is that the translator read the two verses as prose, and when
he got to the word niés, he paused, reflected, and somehow got the idea
into his head that niés was an epithet describing Gualter, and the rest of
the verse another. It is possible that he has read si niés for li niés, mis-
reading l for a “long” s (the form si is used for the normal sis in the
nominative in O 324 -------por go qu’il est si cumpainz, and anyway the
Norseman would scarcely have noticed the absence of an t here), but this
is not very likely, since it is customary in French MSS to begin a verse
with a Capital, and a Capital l could not be mistaken for an s.
Vv. 2070-71,
En la grant presse i fierent as paiens. cp. V4 2214, C 3470
Mil Sarrazins i descendent a piet
Kms translates:
bessir 3 feldu å litilli stundu busund riddara (p. 52112'13).
Apparently the translator has misconstrued the second verse, regarding
Mil Sarrazins as an apposition to paiens. The Kms text here is definitely
derived from the O text rather than that of V4 or C (the verse is omitted
in V7PTL), since in V4 2214,
Par grant vertu i assalient Ascher,
as well as in C 3470,
Per grant vertu les asaillent Turchez,
it is obviously the pagans who attack the Christians.
Rol. Bor. p. 207.