Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 159
longer reign in your realm, for that ruler who publicly prevaricates
and repudiates his oath and his word shall never rule or reign over
righteous men.)
As in Mottuls saga, the baron’s emphatic words are the result primarily of
the synonymous coupling - and alliterating in one case as well - of the
key words. The remark that the entire court could hear his words has a
significance in Tristrams saga that it does not have in Mottuls saga, be-
cause in the former the phrase is repeated several times at short intervals.
In general, action and dialogue are stressed in Tristrams saga through
lexical or phrasal repetition with variation, but on occasion one finds
verbatim repetition if it serves a specific purpose, as is the case here. The
import of the Irishman’s words to King Markis is emphasized through
various collocations and through alliteration; in addition, the author uni-
fies the entire scene and stresses the importance of a public and particu-
larly a royal promise by reminding us repeatedly that the boon was prom-
ised with all the members of King Markis’ court as witnesses. Three times
the author repeats the phrase allri hirdinni å heyrandi and only then
“does he vary it with opinberliga ‘publicly’ and finally with another dative
absolute, allri pinni hird åsjåandi ‘in the presence of all your men’.”18
That repetition of the same words can be a stylistically effective device
when judiciously employed is also demonstrated in Mottuls saga, in the
scene in which Kay’s lady is to try on the mantie. In the French text,
forms of the verb douter occur once or twice in this episode, depending
upon the French manuscript.19 When Kay’s lady suggests that someone
else precede her, Kay accuses her of being afraid - je vos voi doter (v.
398, Wulff edition) - but then reassures her that she need not fear the
displeasure of the other ladies for being so forward - Ja mar douterez le
maugré (Bennett, v. 398; Wulff, v. 406). To create this particular scene
the redactor employs a technique that is an essential part of his approach
to composition throughout the saga: he repeats significant vocabulary in
the French text - or rather, he selects vocabulary deemed to be signifi-
cant to the plot - several times before a particular word occurs in the
18 Paul Schach, “The Style and Structure of Tristrams Saga," Scandinavian Studies: Es-
says Presented to Dr. Henry Goddard Leach on the Occasion of his Eighty-fifth Birthday,
eds. Carl F. Bayerschmidt and Erik J. Friis (Seattle: University of Washington Press for the
American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1965), p. 75. For a discussion of the entire episode,
see pp. 74-76.
19 See Bennett edition, v. 398, p. 14; variants, p. 36; also, F.-A. Wulff, “Le conte du
Mantel,” Romania, XIV (1885), vv. 398 and 406, p. 368.
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