Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Blaðsíða 109
Hon var bædi vitr ok væn,
ljos ok rjod \ andliti Jmlikast sem in rauda rosa
væri samtemprat vid snjohvita liliam,
augun svå skær sem karbunkulus,
horundit svå hvitt sem filsbein,
hår {jvilikt sem gull, ok féll å jord um hana.49
(She was both wise and beautiful, bright and ruddy of face just as if
the red rose were blended with the snow-white lily; her eyes as
sparkling as carbuncles, her skin as white as ivory, hair just like
gold, and it reached to the ground about her.)
Icelandic redactors presumably were well-acquainted with descriptive
stereotypes of feminine beauty, and the redactor of H46 was no excep-
tion.
The faet that the description of the widow is stylistically out of place in
the Stockholm 46 redaction re-enforces our suspicion that the passage is
the Icelander’s own contribution to Ivens saga. Alliterative ornamenta-
tion to stress significant narrative elements is characteristic of the vel-
lums, but in the paper manuscript this stylistic technique is employed
only minimally and sporadically. To find alliteration predominating in a
passage such as the one cited above is unusual. The presence of the
stylistically uncharacteristic passage can be explained by positing an in-
consistent redactor. It is clear that brevity was a principle of composition
in the Stockholm 46 redaction, that is, a striving for brevity produced
extensive cuts in Ivens saga as we know it from the vellums. Either a
redactor did not condense systematically the text from which he was
copying, or a redactor was confronted by an already reduced version of
Ivens saga, that he proceeded to modify and expand. In the case of the
younger Mågus saga, mentioned earlier, we have an instance of inten-
tional scribal amplification that embraced a systematic stylistic transfor-
mation. In the seventeenth-century redaction of Ivens saga we confront
an infelicitous blending of two styles, that can be explained by positing a
redactor who was intent upon “improving” the tale that he was to copy.
He produced thoughtful modifications in the content, but presumably
was little concerned about adapting his own style to that of his exemplar.
If one accepts such an hypothesis, then the alliterative style of the eulogy
49 LMIR, V, 3:7-11.
95