Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Síða 107
latter’s stronghold, and suddenly finds himself entrapped in a hall.
Through a window he can observe the grieving widow. The scene now
depicted in the vellums is odd because insufficiently -motivated. Iven is
suddenly seized by violent, inexplicable love for the weeping woman.
The saga renders with naive simplicity a scene that in Chrétien’s Yvain
extends to some 90 verses (vv. 1416-1506):
Fru kastalans sat ok syrgOi bonda sinn. En herra Iven var |>at
hinn mesti harmr, er hann måtti ekki tala vid hana. En hon
veinadi ok kærdi sik, en stundum féll hon i ovit, stundum
kyrkti hon sik ok vildi sjålf drepa sik. Ok |)vi meir lystadi
hann at sjå hana, ok elskadi hana af ollum hug, ok vildi
gjarna tala vid hana, ok svå mikla åst hafdi hann å henni, at
heldr vildi hann deyja [>ar, en tala eigi nokkut vid hana, ok
freista, ef hann mætti få hennar åst. (37:3-38:12)
(The lady of the castle was sitting, mourning her husband. It was
the greatest sorrow for Sir Iven that he could not speak with her.
She wailed and mourned. At times she feli in a faint, at times she
choked herself and wanted to kill herself. fven wished to see her all
the more and loved her with all his heart. He wanted very much to
speak to her. So great was his love for her that he wished to die
there rather than not speak to her at all, or at least try to win her
love.)
The account above seems to suggest that grief holds a morbid fascination
for fven and that the widow’s lamentation and physical violence to herself
are responsible for fven’s infatuation. It is otherwise in the French ro-
mance. Chrétien depicts how Love personified seizes Yvain’s heart (vv.
1356-1405). As the knight observes Laudine in mourning he becomes
distressed because inordinate grief disfigures her beauty. The Icelandic
passage cited above corresponds to the hero’s subsequent meditation on
Laudine’s beauty (Yvain, vv. 1462-1506). Yvain considers her eyes, her
hair, the form and color of her face, in short, her entire physical appear-
ance. None of these reflections found their way into the vellums. Never-
theless, the Norwegian translation must have been more faithful to the
content and spirit of the French text than is evident from the above
passage. The widow’s beauty is in faet depicted in Ivens saga but only in
the Stockholm 46 redaction, where we read (numbering has been added
to facilitate subsequent comparison):
93