Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Qupperneq 157

(Yes, certainly, before he takes me alive, I will kill myself, and thus
he will have me dead. Then I do not care if Clamadeus - who thinks
he will get me - carries me off; he will not get me in any way, except
empty of life and spirit. For I have in one of my coffers a knife of
fine Steel, with which I will pierce myself.)
In effect, the saga author recognized the advantage of variation to ex-
press emotional content. He transferred the stress semantically, how-
ever, and at the same time restructured the passage.
Since the Arthurian riddarasogur contain so many similar scenes, in
which frequently the same persons appear, they are singularly appropri-
ate for comparisons of style or of translational technique. Both Tristrams
saga and Mottuls saga contain one scene in which the king - Markis in one
case, Arthur in the other - is reprimanded for intending to break a
promise. In the mantie tale Arthur wants to dismiss the boy with the
mantie because he senses the discomfort of the ladies and does not want
to embarrass them further. The boy reminds the king of his promise, and
insists on his right to carry out his errand, that is, to see to it that every
woman at Arthur’s court submits to the mantie test. In Le mantel mau-
taillié he demands:
...Ce n’est pas droit.
Jamais nul jor nu reprendrai,
desi que je veii avrai
que toutes l’avront afublé,
que ce que rois a creanté
doit estre par reson tenu. (vv. 364-69)
(This is not right. At no time ever will I take it [the mantie] back,
until I have seen to it that all have tried it on. For what the king has
promised ought by rights to be kepb)
The saga exaggerates the speech through parallel collocations. More-
over, the boy implies that the king is buekling under pressure from oth-
ers, that indeed the royal authority is being undermined:
Eigi er ]>at rétt, herra, edr sæmiligt né ydvarri tign
tilhey riligt.
Ok aldri skal ek fyrr vid taka mottlinum, en ek sé,
at allar konur ok meyjar hafa honum klædzk;
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