Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Blaðsíða 128

court. He takes it upon himself to elucidate the particular type of infidel-
ity of which each lady is guilty. Then he escorts each disgraced woman to
her seat. In this respect he bears himself chivalrously, although one can-
not be sure whether his words of comfort are not spoken tongue-in-
cheek. That Kay is known as a difficult person becomes evident from the
reaction of the other knights when the mantie does not fit Kay’s lady
either. One of the knights gives voice to the general Schadenfreude of the
court and expresses delight that the man who is so accustomed to scoffing
and scorning others, should for once himself become the object of mock-
ery: “Vel er nu,” segir hann, “at heim (181, henni 179) snuisk spott ok
svlvirding til sjålfs pins, er pu spottar hvem mann” (ch. 7, pp. 17-18 ‘It is
well,’ he says, ‘that ridicule and shame recoil upon you, since you ridicule
all men’).
The thematic and motival extravagations of the Arthurian riddara-
sogur vis-å-vis the French romances generally presuppose discernment of
a pattern or a commonplace in the sources and the modification of exis-
ting clichés or their duplication through interpolated matter. As far as
motifs and themes are concerned, the authors of the riddarasogur tend to
adopt and adapt from the sources. Regarded as structural entities, how-
ever, the riddarasogur depart frequently from the framework of the
French originals. Structural extravagations can affect the sequence of
details in a single scene as well as the organization of the entire work. No
two sagas contain the same amount of structural modification; yet taken
as a group they reveal that the Old Norse-Icelandic authors approached
their task of translating and editing with pre-determined principles of
narrative structure.
Not infrequently structural changes result from a different authorial
perspective. A shift of visual - and concomitantly narrative - focus in a
short scene in Ivens saga necessitated a modification of the sequence of
details. Iven has killed the lord of the spring and after having pursued the
mortally wounded knight into his own castle, Iven finds himself locked in
a hall. Through the magic power of a ring he becomes invisible and thus is
able to observe the funeral procession without being seen. The author
depicts the scene with utmost simplicity:
Ok i [>ann tima var borit lik riddarans um hollina. En eptir
likinu gekk ein fru svå fogr, at i allri veroldu måtti eigi finnask
hennar noti. Hon syrgdi ok æpti sinn harm. Stundum féll hon
i ovit. (ch. 4, 35:15-36:1)
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