Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Síða 280
266
. . ok heldr vil ek dauSa (jola en missa e5a tyna hans vinåttu (p. 49 72).
In Kms and CV7 it is Ganeion who would rather die than estre de lui
sevrez; in OV4 it is the emperor who would rather die than guer pir sun
barnet. The CV7 verse has been changed during the process of rhyming,
and the verse is a typical example of the feeble and unimaginative stock
phrases to which the “rhymer” resorts on such occasions. But the saga
text is not really a correct translation of CV7; missa eda tyna is clearly
based on guerpir, not on estre sevrez, and if the source of the saga had
guerpir, it must have had the rest of the O verse too, and cannot have had
the same text as CV7. The explanation is probably that the translator did
not understand the line; meilz voel(t) murir que guerpir ... is what he
expected Ganeion to declare, and he then invented something to make up
for the word barnet. He was at a loss to understand what it was that the
emperor would rather die than lose.
O v. 1561:
A voiz escriet: “Ferez i, chevaler!”
cp. V4 1535: Aprés s’escria: “Firez, franchi civaler.”
has been changed in the version rimée to
C 2658: “Monjoie,” escrie, por sa gent esforcer;
2659: “Ferez! Frangois, Jhesus vos puist aidier!”
The Kms version resembles that of the version rimée'.
SiSan mælti hann vi5 sina menn: Blåsit i Iu5ra y5ra ok sækit fram djarfliga
(p. 5132^-25).
The expression blåsa i ludra is the usual translation of escrier Munjoie,
and there can scarcely be any doubt that k had a verse with Munjoie in
it here. But Munjoie escriet is the sort of stock phrase that any scribe
might add, and in this case it only meant changing A voiz to Munjoie. It
is even possible that the change is due to the translator, who seems to
have thought that escrier meant “blow”, and not understanding the ex-
pression a voiz, he may have put in his usual ludrar.
The last example is in the translation of O v. 2287: O, followed by
V4 v. 2443, says that Roland
Tient l’olifan, qu’unkes perdre ne volt,
and gave the pagan such a heavy blow that he was killed. In C v. 4038,
followed by V7 and T (v. 1923; PL diff.), Roland