Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Blaðsíða 171

skal ek aldri vera flyjandi,
medan er ek upp standandi. (ch. 5, 14:29-31)
(My courage will never be found wanting in face of anyone alive; I
shall never flee while I am still on my feet.)
The emphasis on content generated in both of the preceding examples of
verse in Parcevals saga is not alone the result of rhyme. Contextual stress
derives from a combination of various stylistic devices, such as semantic
repetition with concomitant alliteration in the first passage, and in the
second, the concurrence of rhyme and assonance. That rhyme is only one
of several stylistic devices to emphasize the content of a passage or scene
is evident in the use of three couplets to conclude, summarize, and sup-
port the rhetorical structure of the lament of Parceval’s kinswoman,
whom he meets after his night in the Grail Castle. Parceval comes upon
her as she is holding the corpse of her husband in her arms, weeping and
complaining bitterly:
“Surr ert (du, daudi, er J?u tokt mitt Hf ekki fyrr
en bonda mins,
ok illt verdi J?ér, hjarta, er (du springr ekki af hans dauda,
(mat ek vilda daud vera med honum
svå sem mitt Hf var kært hans Hfi.”
UHk var åst manna fordum,
sem hon syndi i sinum ordum.
På var tryggt (Dat er nu er hryggt.
På var blitt (Dat er nu er stritt. (ch. 11, 31:14-20)
(“Bitter are you death, since you did not take my life before that of
my husband, and it is wrong for you, heart, that you do not burst at
his death, for 1 wanted to be dead with him, just as my life was dear
to his life.” Formerly the love of two people was different, as she
showed by her words. What was then fidelity is now affliction.
What was then happy, is now painful.)
The model both for content and approach, in the form of an apostrophe,
is Perceval, w. 3434-52. The apostrophe of death is balanced in the saga
by the parallel apostrophe of the heart. From the French romance the
saga takes over the grammatical (noun-adjective) and semantic variations
of death (semantic in that the noun daudi is used both as the abstract and
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