Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 162
al rejects the queen’s advances, she uses the same expression Janual had
used in rebuffing her, to huri the charge at him that his desires can only
be satisfied by young boys:
“Janual,” kvad hon, “{?at hygg ec at visu,
at pér licar litt kvenna astir oc uidrskifti,
Jjui at f)ér hugnar betr at eiga vid unga sveina
oc gera syndgan vilia j^inn a j^eim.
Slica skemtan lætr }m lica pér. ” (p. 70)
(“Janual,” she said, “I think that love and intercourse with women
surely pleases you little, because you prefer to carry on with young
boys and perform your sinful desires on them. That is the kind of
amusement you consider pleasing. ”)
In the succession of scenes depicting court life and Guinevere’s improper
advances to Janual, the repeated play on the word lica stresses certain
aspects of the narrative and lends coherence to related scenes. At the
same time variation through antithesis contrasts the two worlds repre-
sented in the tale, the Arthurian and fairy realms.
A variant of lexical repetition is enumeration, a device based on syn-
tactic rather than semantic repetition. Syntactic parallelism is frequently
supported by other stylistic devices such as alliteration, or synonymous or
antithetic collocations. In Tristrams saga, for example, Isond’s all-impor-
tant trial scene is dramatically presented by focusing on the reactions of
others to Isond’s predicament; Brother Robert “endeavors to achieve
emotional intensification by cumulative or enumerative technique.”20
Thus we read about those who sympathize with Isond:
Grétu \)å allir, svå okunnugir sem kunnugir,
utlenzkir sem innlenzkir,
rikir ok fåtækir,
ungir ok gamlir -
allir kenndu i brjosti um hana. (ch. 59, p. 127)
(All wept, strangers and acquaintances, foreigners and country-
men, rich and poor, young and old - all of them felt pity for her.)
20 Schach, “The Style and Structure of Tristrams saga,” p. 80.
148