Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 156
the content essentially, one can nevertheless observe how style affects
meaning, inasmuch as a shift in nuance can be effected. Because the
added emphasis is provided by variation in the saga, the ladies are depic-
ted as more reluctant to try on the mantie than in Le mantel mautaillié. A
similar technique of variation can be observed in Parcevals saga, when
Blankiflur threatens to take her life should Klamadius be victorious. She
confides in Parceval:
Nu skulu j?eir mér aldri kvikri nå,
|>vfat ek hefi i kistu minni einn {?ann knif,
er ek skal drepa mik med;
en Klamadius skal mik aldri kvika fadma,
t>oat hann hafi mik med våpnum sotta. (ch. 7, 19:17-20)
(Now they will never take me alive, because I have in my coffer a
knife with which I will kill myself. And Klamadius will never em-
brace me alive, even though he has attacked me with weapons.)
Just as the pernicious object in Mottuls saga, the mantie, was removed
from the ladies - semantically speaking - so also in the preceding passage
the author of Parcevals saga plays on words denoting distance. The verbs
nå and fadma, for which there are no exact equivalents in the French,
are a progression from a more general concept denoting an indefinite
physical distance to a more specific verb connoting the greatest physical
proximity. Blankiflur’s decision is stressed structurally and also support-
ed by the alliteration of the all-important kvikr with those words - knif
and Klamadius - that spell her death. In this case the repetition of kvikr
in conjunction with two different verbs is only a variation of the style
already suggested by the French text, not an addition, for Chrétien em-
phasizes Blancheflor’s words through synonymous variation:
Mais certes ains qu’il m’en maint vive,
M’ocirrai je, si m’avra morte;
Puis ne me caurra s’il m’en porte,
Clamadeus, qui avoir me quide.
Ja ne m’avra, s’il ne m’a wide
De vie et d’ame, en nule fin;
Car je gar$ en un mien escrin
Un coutel tot de fin acier,
Que me volrai el cuer fichier. (w. 2026-34)
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