Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 154
140
Li reis fait prendre le cunte Guenelun
is translated
SiSan lét Karlamagnus konungr taka Guinelun jarl (p. 5 1 825"26),
the French source may have had fist prendre instead of fait prendre2.
Anyone familiar with the habits of Icelandic scribes, and of the translators
as well, will know that the existing MSS cannot he trusted in such
matters: every scribe felt entitled to make changes of a grammatical or
syntactical nature. Individual judgement will always play a large part in
textual criticism, but it must be based on as many objective criteria as
possible, and one of the most serious deficiencies in M. Aebischer’s com-
mentary, as well as in Stengel’s critical edition, is that these scholars have
not reached any definite conclusions about the critical principles on which
their text should be based.
The Kms version of the Chanson de Roland contains, beside important
differences from the other versions such as the absence of the Baligant
episode and the fight between Pinabel and Tierri, a number of smaller
factual omissions and additions, things which do not in themselves change
the structure of the poem, but which nevertheless give the saga version a
special place among the variant versions. Such comparatively small modi-
fications occur in all the French versions too, and these details will have
to be discussed, and we shall have to try to decide, in the light of our
knowledge of the practices of French remanieurs as well as those of the
Norse translator, whether the modifications are of Norse or of French
origin.
“Chaque version constitue un organisme fait de respect et d’audace. Chaque re-
manieur est å la fois traditionaliste et novateur. Quand il innove, il peut intervenir
par addition, mais aussi par suppression”.
Thus writes M. Jules Horrent3 of the dif ferent French versions of the
Chanson de Roland, and his words apply to the Kms version as well. O
dif fers from all the other versions in its treatment of vv. 279-330 and
in a number of smaller details. V4 has a number of relatively small addi-
tions, and it has shortened the first part of the poem quite considerably
(O v. 993 = V4 v. 931, and V4 has a number of additional verses as well).
3 Rol. Bor. p. 197.
3 La Chanson de Roland dans les littératures frangaise et espagnole au moyen åge,
p. 210, cp. pp. 205, 365-67.