Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Síða 214
200
The short note at the end of the passage, to the effect that this was
the end of the second battie, must be seen in conjunction with the addi-
tions between w. 592 and 593 and at the beginning of Kms chapter 27,
as pointed out above. It is due to a remanieur who wanted to stress the
division of the fighting into three separate batties, and, as I have already
said (above p. 180), it is probably due to a French jongleur, and not to
the translator.
The Kms text here must, as we have seen, be based on a laisse of the
same type as the additional laisse in V4. The lines in Kms which may be
based on verses in the two laisses also found in O are mostly stock phrases
to which doser parallels are found in other parts of the poem. I am rather
inclined to think that the French version on which the translator worked
did not contain these laisses, i.e. that once again V4 (and the version
rimée) has combined the two O laisses with one Kms variant laisse. V4 has
made a number of additions to the O text in the two original laisses,
mostly verses describing the confusion on the battlefield, lines which the
author of this version seems to be very fond of. It is quite possible that the
additional laisse too has been revised, and that Kms has a text that, with
all its stock phrases, is doser to the original variant version than the laisse
as it stands in V4. The rhymed version is unfortunately much altered and
of little use in this case.
The author of the variant version translated in Kms was particularly
interested in Roland and his exploits, and changed or omitted laisses for
this reason: thus in the present case he stresses Roland’s part in the pursuit
of the pagans, and in vv. 1002-48, he omits the laisses where Oliver tells
the French that the pagan army is approaching, and keeps the laisse (vv.
1017-27) where he tells Roland. This may, of course, be due to the trans-
lator, but in the case of vv. 1653-70 at least, the additional laisse in V4-
version rimée shows that the tendency is there in the French MSS as
well43.
43 M. Aebischer: Rol. Bor. p. 187, thinks that the translator did not fully under-
stand the French verses in this passage. But the majority of these verses contain no
words that have not been correctly translated elsewhere.