Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Síða 88
modified. To explain the remarkable similarity between the extant pri-
mary manuscripts, a common exemplar for Ormsbok and *Stockholm 6
4to might be posited:
X
*Ormsbdk *Stockholm 6 4to
Stockholm 46 AM 181b
The preceding discussion has shown that there is considerable variation
in the type of manuscript evidence available for undertaking a study of
the Arthurian riddarasogur. A thirteenth-century Norwegian text of the
Strengleikar would seem incomparably superior to a seventeenth-century
redaction of Erex saga, a work that is at once extraordinarily condensed
and modified vis-å-vis its French source (see pp. 191-98). Textual discrep-
ancies in the various manuscripts for every one of the Arthurian riddara-
sogur force us to come to terms with the faet of textual corruption even in
the oldest, that is, Norwegian vellum. No single manuscript, no conflated
text of the several manuscripts of the works here considered, wholly rep-
resent the content, structure, and style of the thirteenth-century transla-
tions. Consequently, adherence to the position enunciated by Geraldine
Barnes is indefensible. Nonetheless, the opposite view that discourages
comparative and stylistic analysis of the riddarasogur is just as unwarrant-
ed. Despite absence of definitive texts, that is, manuscript equivalents of
“Ausgaben letzter Hånd,” manuscript resources - but unfortunately not
yet a sufficient number of adequate editions - permit valid comparative,
even stylistic studies of the translated romances. On the basis of available
textual evidence we can postulate Norwegian translations that were accu-
rate. If one leaves aside for the time being the problem of intentional
modifications, then actual mistakes were few. We also infer that the
translations preserved the content of the French sources more fully than
surviving manuscripts, singly or as an aggregate, attest.
Once we accept the proposition that Norwegian and Icelandic manu-
scripts represent the translator’s work only imperfectly, we confront the
thorny problem of attribution: to whom are we to ascribe modifications
of content and structure? Who is to be blamed for reduction of text, or
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