Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Síða 153

entirely dissimilar. Both recognize the effectiveness of repetition, in this
case of synonymous pairs, for depicting heightened emotion. Chrétien
and the author of Ivens saga do not always agree, however, on the pas-
sage selected for rhetorical embellishment.
Ampiification through either synonymous or antithetic parallelism oc-
curs principally in passages that are significant for the development of the
plot. In Le mantel mautaillié, for example, the question of honor is of
prime importance, and the plot revolves around a chastity test conducted
at Arthur’s court, the ladies’ reactions to being asked to submit to the test
and their subsequent chagrin at having their infidelity exposed. The first
woman to realize that the mantie - the means for testing the ladies - has
extraordinary powers is the queen herself. Her reaction upon hearing of
the mantle’s magic properties is thoughtful:
La ro'ine se porpensa
que, s’el fesoit d’ire semblant
tant seroit la honte plus grant;
ainz l’a a jenglois atorné. (vv. 334-37)
(The queen reflected that if she appeared to be angry, her disgrace
would be all the greater; instead, she turned it into a joke.)
The key words in the French text are ire, honte, and jenglois. This faet
was recognized by the author of Mottuls saga, for he stressed the three
concepts by means of parallel collocations:
|)å lhugadi drottningin, ef hon angradisk edr reiddisk nokkut
vid {jetta,
at Jjå mundi henni vera virt til skemmdar ok til svivirdingar,
er hon hafdi mistekit fram hjå Jmlikum hofdingja;
ok Jjvi sneri hon ollu [ressu til gamans ok skemmtanar, hlåtrs
ok /eiks ok Wægiligra orda. (ch. 6, p. 14)17
17 The combination hlåtrslleikslhlægiligra is an example of original Norwegian allitera-
tion with Icelandic orthography. In Norwegian, initial h- before -l, -n, and -r had already
disappeared in pre-literary times (see Noreen, Altnordische Grammatik, I, 5. unverånderte
Auflage [Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1970], pp. 211; 289. Also, Cederschiold, Fornsogur Sudr-
landa, p. IX). According to Icelandic conventions, only hlåtrslhlægiligra alliterate. Whether
an Icelandic copyist perceived an alliterative triplet or only a couplet is a moot point. On
the simultaneous occurrence of Icelandic and Norwegian alliteration in one and the same
manuscript, see Tveitane, Den lærde stil, pp. 78-80; Einar 6l. Sveinsson, “Athugasemdir
um Alexanderssogu og GyOingasogu,” Skirnir, 135 (1961), pp. 243-46.
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