Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Qupperneq 100

some news about an adventure that happened either near or far,
and from which he might derive joy and amusement).
The preceding passage - as well as the earlier one - raises what appear to
be unanswerable questions for want of the translator’s own text. All the
primary manuscripts of Mottuls saga exhibit amplification, but in the
younger redactions amplification is more pronounced. In the above pas-
sage the AM 598 redaction lacks what must reflect an original translation
of n’est pas bel in v. 90, that is, at hann var varia gladr. Moreover, AM
598 does not contain the alliterative variation of this line, a form of
summation of the entire passage: ok hann mætti sér giedi ok gaman af
gera. The French text speaks for the genuineness of the words correspond-
ing to v. 90; congruence among all manuscripts speaks - yet with less
authority - for the originality of fann sem gerdisk nær edr fjarri. The
question remains, however: did the scribe of the vellum fragment AM
598 - or an earlier scribe - excise both of the passages in question, or did
he excise only the first? If only the loss of the first passage is to be
ascribed to him, then is the last line above a case of editorial amplifica-
tion, an interpolation vis-å-vis the translation, by a later scribe? To put
the question another way: does the longer, elegantly symmetrical text of
the seventeenth-century paper manuscript AM 179 reflect the text of the
translation, or are we confronted by a case of rather consistent and
skillful scribal amplification of an originally less expansive text?
A comparison of other passages in Mottuls saga shows that in the paper
manuscript AM 179 amplification reflects a tendency to symmetry and to
synonymous or alliterating collocations. For example, in the prologue of
the vellum 598 we read that the author undertook to translate the tale
into Norwegian til gamans, for the entertainment of his listeners, but the
paper manuscript AM 179 has a synonymous collocation til gamans ok
skemmtanar (ch. 1, p. 2:7 ‘for entertainment and amusement’). Arthur’s
invitation in the vellum is til hirdar hans but in the paper manuscript til
hirdar ok håtidar hans (ch. 2, p. 2:27 ‘to his court and his festivities’).
The finery bestowed by the queen in the fragment AM 598 is so magnifi-
cent that engi kaupmadr kunni at kaupa få eda selja vid verdi (‘no
merchant could buy or seli them at a just price’). The two paper manu-
scripts contain syntactically different yet symmetrical readings: AM 179
writes engi kaupmadr kunni at selja né verdi at kaupa (‘no merchant
could sell or buy at a just price’ [ch. 2, p. 3:23]); AM 181b fol. contains an
additional comparative: engi kaupmadr kunni dyrra at selja né verdi at
kaupa (‘no merchant could sell it more dearly or buy it at a just price’).
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