Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 233
219
2860: A Eis esteie, a une feste anoel,
Si se vanterent mi vaillant chevaler
De granz batailles, de forz esturs pieners.
D’une raisun oi Rollant parler:
Ja ne murreit en estrange regnet
2865: Ne trespassast ses humes e ses pers;
Vers lur pais avreit sun chef turnet;
Cunquerrantment si finereit li bers.”
Kms has translated this part of the poem, but laisse CCIV is omitted.
It is scarcely a coincidence that the two laisses which refer to Roland’s
decision to die cunquerrantment have been omitted; the omission must be
deliberate, and made by someone who knew the poem intimately, i.e. cer-
tainly not the translator. Secondly, if the third of three parallel laisses
was chosen to be included in a shortened version, while the two others
were omitted, this implies an ability to choose between “variants”, which
again it would be hazardous to attribute to our translator, who very
rarely seems to be able to avoid repetitions of the most obvious kind. Cp.
on page 522:
Nu réttir Rollant vi8 ok så Turpin erkibyskup liggja å vellinum fyrir sér (p.
52225-26)
l>å så Rollant Turpin erkibyskup liggja fyrir sér å vellinum (p. 52 232-33).
These are quite absurd and unnecessary repetitions, but the reason for
them is that the translator found them in his source:
2233: Li quens Rollant revient de pasmeisuns:
Sur piez se drecet, mais il ad grant dulur.
2236: Sur l’erbe verte, ultre ses cumpaignuns,
La veit gesir le nobilie barun,
(Jo est l’arcevesque,----
2246: Li quens Rollant veit l’arcevesque a tere:
V. 2246 is the beginning of a new laisse, and the repetition is of a type
which is very common in the poem. Nothing would have been easier than
for the translator to omit it, and to combine the two laisses, quite apart
from the faet that the whole of vv. 2246-58 might justifiably be regarded
as a repetition, and consequently left out. It seems improbable that the
same person is responsible for the repetitions just quoted and for the re-
duction of vv. 2355-96 to one laisse. The latter operation must have been
carried out by a real editor, a person who was probably not a poet, but