Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 175
Understandably, the queen reports Janual’s vaunting words to King
Arthur. Janual’s refusal to dishonor his king (suivirding) is used against
him as the queen claims that Janual had dishonored her (suivirde). When
Janual is finally brought before the king, the latter’s anger concentrates
itself on the supposed loss of honor to the royal pair. This anger is
expressed stylistically through alliterating grammatical variations and
synonymous collocations:
“Snapr,” kvad hann,
“mioc heuir J)u svivirt mic oc vid mic gort suivirdlega.”
“|ju hoft i dag,” kvad hann, “dia oc unyta deilld,
suivirdir mic oc spottader drotningena,
rosader mikilli heimsku.
Of frid oc of dyrleg er unnasta f)in,
ef Jjionastomær hennar er villdre oc hoskare en drotning
vår er.” (p. 71)
(“Boor,” he said, “you have greatly disgraced me and treated me
disgracefully. You began today,” he said, “an evil and unprofitable
controversy. You disgraced me and you mocked the queen. You
boasted very foolishly. Your sweetheart is too beautiful and too
glorious if her serving-maid is better and wiser than our queen is.”)
When alliteration is not combined with antithetic or synonymous collo-
cations, we find it difficult to discern to what degree certain sound combi-
nations were intentional, or occasioned by chance or the exigencies of
content. One such case is Tristram’s message in Geitarlauf. To evaluate
the following passage properly one must bear in mind that this Ijod,
unlike Januals Ijod, contains no alliterative clusters, but that alliteration
is interwoven throughout the text in a most unobtrusive manner. Geitar-
lauf contains no dialogue. The tale is told in the third person; discourse is
indirect. The only exception to this is the message to Isond inscribed by
Tristram on a stick he has whittled from a piece of hazel wood:
Sva ferr med ocr, kvad hann
sem vidwindill sa er binnz um heslivid
Medan Jjessir tveir vidir bua bader saman,
)ja /iva oc bera /auf sitt.
en sa er Jjessa vide skildi hvarn fra odrum
f)a deyr haslenn oc Jmi nest uidvinndillenn
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