Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Síða 150
lerre (v. 2724 ‘a liar, a traitor, and a thief). Only a few verses of her
impassioned speech should suffice to demonstrate Chrétien’s technique:
Ma dame a cist lerre souduite,
Qui n’estoit de nul mal recuite,
Ne ne cuidoit pas a nul fuer
Qu’il li deiist anbler son cuer.
Cil n’anblent pas les cuers, qui aimment,
Si a teus qui larrons les claimment,
Qui en amor vont faunoiant
Et si n’an sevent tant ne quant.
Li amis prant le cuer s’amie
Einsi qu’il ne li anble mie,
Ainz le garde que ne li anblent
Larron qui prodome resanblent.
Et cil sont larron ipocrite
Et traitor qui metent lite
As cuers anbler, don aus ne chaut;
Mes li amis, quel part qu’il aut,
Le tient chier et si le raporte. (vv. 2725-41)
(This thief has traduced my lady, who was all unprepared for any
evil, and to whom it never occurred, that he would steal her heart
away. Those who love truly do not steal hearts away; there are,
however, some men, by whom these former are called thieves, who
themselves go about deceitfully making love, but in whom there is
no real knowledge of the matter. The lover takes his lady’s heart, of
course, but he does not run away with it; rather does he treasure it
against those thieves who, in the guise of honorable men, would
steal it from him. But those are deceitful and treacherous thieves
who vie with one another in stealing hearts for which they care
nothing. The true lover, wherever he may go, holds the heart dear
and brings it back again.)
The entire passage quoted here, including the introductory verse 2724, is
reduced in the saga to:
En j)ii ert undirhyggjumadr, svikall ok ^jofr. Min fru ætladi
J)ik heilhugadan, ok kom henni J)at aldri i hug at )?u mundir
stela åst hennar ok svikja hana. (84:1-4)