Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 74
On the other hånd, the exemplar from which all the paper manuscripts
derive could have been independent of AM 567, that is, the paper manu-
scripts may go back to a third primary manuscript. Thus, the following
arrangement obtains (p. 72):
Archetype
AM 543 IB 51
JS 8
Regardless which one of the three stemmatic arrangements proposed
above one prefers, the vellum fragments and paper manuscripts comple-
ment each other: Considered together they contain ampie evidence that
Brother Robert’s translation not only possessed greater stylistic refine-
ment than nineteenth-century editions of the saga suggest, but also trans-
mitted more of Thomas’ text into Norwegian.
The Reeves Fragment, a recently discovered vellum from the second
half of the fifteenth century, demonstrates the need for re-evaluating
Brother Robert as a translator.17 More than the paper manuscripts, the
fragment - which contains parts of chapters 71 and 72 of the saga -
approximates the French text, as preserved in the Sneyd1 Fragment. In-
deed, comparison of the Reeves Fragment and the paper manuscripts
with the French text provides evidence of the manner in which text was
modified by later copyists. Some inconsistencies in the narrative arose in
the course of transmission and must not be attributed to Brother Robert.
The fragment proves that the thirteenth-century translation of Tristan
had been fuller than the paper manuscripts indicate. The Reeves Frag-
ment contains, for example, almost the entire authorial excursus on envy
(Sneyd1, vv. 761-70) that follows the episode with the beard-collecting
giant. The paper manuscripts - and that means also all the editions -
contain only a translation of the first two lines of this text, that is, Milz
17 Edited by Paul Schach in Einarsbok, pp. 299-306.
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