Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 232
218
However this may be, vv. 2215-21 belong to a type which the translator
frequently omits.
Of the three laisses devoted to the death of Roland, vv. 2355-96, the
saga has preserved only the third. The two others add little of importance
to the tale, and from the point of view of a prose translation some of the
verses may be regarded as a repetition of what has already been told. Thus
when Roland’s last preparations are described in vv. 2355-58:
Qo sent Rollant que la mort le tresprent
Devers la teste sur le quer li descent.
Desuz un pin i est alet curant,
Sur l’erbe verte s’i est culchet adenz,
the translator may well have thought that this had all been told in vv.
2266-70:
Devers Espaigne en vait en un guaret;
Muntet sur un tertre; desuz dous arbres bels
Quatre perruns i ad, de marbre faiz;
Sur l’erbe verte si est caeit envers:
La s’est pasmet, kar la mort li est pres,
translated:
— ok snerist til Spanialands ok gekk å hæS eina, bar sem lagn 4 marmarasteinar ok
viør var vaxinn, ok settist niSr, ok sé å hann umåttr (p. 5236-8).
But the two laisses do not consist of repetitions only; they carry the
story forward, step by step, as is usual in the parallel laisse of the Chanson
de Roland, and there are details which are neither repetitions nor anti-
cipations of the last laisse. Most important in this respect are vv. 2359-63:
Desuz lui met s’espee e l’olifan,
2360: Turnat sa teste vers la paiene gent:
Pur 50 l’at fait que il voelt veirement
Que Caries diet e trestute sa gent,
Li gentilz quens, qu’il fut mort cunquerant.
The heroic sentiment of these verses should have made them very ac-
ceptable to a Norse audience. But there is more to it than that. Firstly,
this is an important episode in the poem, and it is referred to again, in
laisse CCIV: Charlemagne arrives at Roncevaux, and orders his men to
move slowly; he, the emperor, will search for the body of his nephew: