Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 209
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less than four times, in a manner which is reminicent of the later poems
of this genre. This scene disturbs the equilibrium and the elaborate paral-
lelism of the poem, and adds little of any value. There are repetitions
with variations in the Chanson de Rolandbut they are very different in
character from the pure repetitiveness of Turpin’s speeches40.
But in this case the saga, although not based on O, has none of the
blemishes of V4. In general the story is told in the same way in the saga
as in O, with the exception that Kms devotes some lines to Margariz.
Margariz is described in O as a great fighter, but also a good knight,
in v. 960,
N’i ad paien de tel chevalerie,
and the poet seems to take a special interest in him: he is also the only one
of the pagan peers who is not killed in the first battie. This has led
M. Horrent41 to think that the original Chanson de Roland told what
happened to him: if the poet made him survive, it was because he intended
to use him. But this is surely to attach too much importance to the flatter-
ing description of Margariz in vv. 955-61; its function in the poem is,
in my opinion, to serve as a contrast to the picture of the terrible Chernu-
bles de Munigre in the following laisse. These two are the greatest of the
pagan peers, and survive longer than the others, and they are therefore
endowed with more individual features than the others. It is not necessary
that anyone should bring the news of the defeat to Marsilie: the pagan
king had been told that more than one battie would be needed (vv. 588-
93), and was certainly not going to leave his peers to fight it out with the
French. He sacrifices them to wear out the enemy, and is on his way to
enter the battie with his main force (vv. 1448 etc.). If Margariz was
meant to escape and bring him the news, it is difficult to see why the
editor of the O version should wish to suppress this episode. It is much
easier to visualize a later remanieur using the faet that Margariz had
apparently escaped, to create this new incident. It is quite in keeping with
the somewhat heavyhanded logics of remanieurs in general. I would ex-
plain the addition of the laisses dealing with the dividing of the pagan
army (V4 vv. 1452-97) in the same way: in O a part of the pagan army
attacks at once, and Marsilie only intervenes later, and the remanieur has
* Cp. Bédier, Lég. ép. III, 3rd ed. p. 472-73.
41 La Chanson de Roland etc. pp. 220-22. Bédier: Commentaires, pp. 182-88,
points out that the V4-version rimée form of this episode is unsatisfactory.
13*