Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 218
effect of the love potion on Tristram and Isodd. Paul Schach has observed
that the episode is one of the weakest in the entire saga: “The drinking of
the love potion, which explains and symbolizes the inevitability of the
love of Tristram and Isodd and thus extenuates their guilt, is dealt with in
a very summary manner.”20 Nonetheless, the author is consistent in the
depiction of love: like Kalegras and Blenzibly, Tristram and Isodd give
no heed to their surroundings:
En begår bau hofdu drukkit, tok at seinkask ferbin, b>vf at bå
felldi hvårt beirra begar svå mikla åst til annars, at varia gåbu
bau ferba sinna fyrir. Nu varb ferb beirra sein, bvi at bau
lågu lengi i somu hofn; svå er sagt, at bau hafi iij månabi verit
i ferbinni, abr bau kæmi vib England, (ch. 10, p. 56)
(As soon as they had drunk, their journey began to be delayed
because immediately each of them fell so much in love with the
other that they scarcely paid any attention to their travels. Now
their journey became so slow because they lay for a long time in the
same harbor. So it is said, that they had been on their journey for
three months before they reached England.)
In the passage above, as in the Blenzibly-Kalegras episode, the author
depicts a love that is sudden, overwhelming, and which for a period of
time - three months and three years respectively - is exclusive of the rest
of the world.
Tristram’s adulterous affair with Isodd is tersely depicted. Nonethe-
less, the author makes the most of the potentially farcical aspects of the
situation by portraying Morodd as naively trusting and Tristram as an
inept secret lover. Morodd’s simplistic trust in the innocence of Tristram
and Isodd is consistent with his behavior at the time of Tristram’s arrival
with the king’s bride-to-be. Morodd’s offer to Tristram at eiga Isodd (‘to
have Isodd as wife’) is ironical: the audience knows that the belated offer
only confirms what is already a faet. Moreover, Tristram’s lack of response
to the offer serves to re-enforce the irony (see pp. 110-11). Thus his affair
with Isodd is conducted with Morodd’s blessing, as it were. When Héri,
the king’s confidant, informs Morodd that Tristram goes to Isodd’s bed
each night, the king’s response implies that he does not consider the
couple’s relationship objectionable. He reassures Héri: Gera pau pat allt
20 “The Saga af Tristram ok isodd. Summary or Satire?” p. 345.
204