Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Qupperneq 188

174
The question then is: what is the exact relationship between Kms, O, and
CV7 in this episode?
Stengel, whose classification of the versions is different from that ac-
cepted by most scholars to-day, has decided that Kms represents the
original version: he includes the additional verses found in the saga, but
excludes those appearing only in the version rimée. Everybody will agree
with him that CV7 represents an expanded version; the repetitions in this
text are typical of the later chansons de geste. I fully agree with M. Hor-
rent27, and Bédier28 that the O version of this episode is better than that
of Kms and the other foreign versions: the real message is to be found in
the letter, and the “message” which Ganeion delivers in vv. 428-37, and
of which the addition we are dealing with is an anticipation, has been
invented by Ganeion himself in order to insult Marsilie. The version
represented by Kms and CV7 must be a remaniement, carried out by a
person who has missed this point, and whose main concern was to leave
no loose ends, and to see that as little as possible was left to the imagina-
tion of the audience. The saga being derived from an assonanced version,
its text is likely to represent an older stage in the development of the
Chanson de Roland than CV7, but this does not necessarily mean that the
additional laisses found in CV7 but not in Kms in this place are additions
made by the rimeur; the saga might naturally have shortened the episode.
But this is not likely; it would be strange indeed if the first full laisses
omitted in the saga text should happen to be these two (C laisses 28 and
29) that are not found in the O text. Therefore, CV7 must be derived
from a text very similar to the one from which Kms has been translated.
But CV7 is not simply an expanded version of the Kms text, it is a com-
bination of O and Kms: in O Ganeion drops the glove, in Kms he drops
the letter, but in CV7 he drops both letter and glove. This combined
version, apparently represented by CV7 only, may once have existed in an
assonanced form, since, in my opinion, V4 is not really as close to the O
version of this episode as it may appear at first glance. It is true that V4
vv. 256—61 correspond roughly to O vv. 331—36, which describe the drop-
ping of the glove, but the V4 assonance is in -ant, as in the version rimée
description (C vv. 493-501), while the O assonance is in -é..e, and V4,
like CV7 and Kms, omits v. 341, in which Charlemagne hånds Ganeion
” La Chanson de Roland etc. p. 158.
28 Commentaires, pp. 132-34.