Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1991, Qupperneq 214

200
The Latin phrase in 226 »Non habemus regum. nisi cesarem« (988'9)
is in 41 turned into nonsense: »Nam habenus Regnam nostri et sareni«
(263r22-23). In 714 it looks as if the scribe tried to translate the phrase
but then gave up: »fwiad Vier høfum Løg og ept: etc.« (102v8).
V
Certain sections of the Pilate legend in 714 differ considerably from
the corresponding sections in 226 and 41 and appear to bear no rela-
uon to the legend in GS. Common to these sections and passages in
714 is that they seem to be based on chapbook material and are found
in varying degrees of similarity in young Icelandic manuscripts
containing the Pilate legend.20
In the Latin, 226, and 41 Pilate’s father was a king from Mainz. One
day on a hunt he read in the stars that a woman should receive from
him a son, who would be mighty and rule over many lands. Since he
was far away from home, he had his hunting companions bring him
the local miller’s daughter with whom he slept.21 In 714, however,
Pilate’s father was a king of Judaea and dwelt by the Rhine (96r3-4).
One day on a hunt he rode after an animal and got lost from his friends
(96r9-12). Night had come, and the king read in the stars that a woman
should receive from him a son, who would be mighty and rule over
many lands. As he was wandering about in deep thought, he found a
miller’s house, where he stayed overnight and slept with the miller’s
daughter (96r 12-22).
In 714 the account of Pilate’s murder of his half-brother, the king’s
legitimate son, his being sent to Rome to the emperor as a punish-
ment, where he kills his companion, and his being exiled to Pontus
(96v4-97rl2) is amplified, and the wording is quite different from that
of 226 and 41. Moreover, in 714 Pilate’s companion in Rome is the
20 For a discussion of this material see Martin (1973), op. cit., pp. 114-117. Seealso my
article »Lifssaga Pilati in Lbs. 4270 4to«, forthcoming in Proceedings of the PMR
Conference, Villanova, Pennsylvania.
21 AsJ6n Helgason notes, p. 367, the account in 41 is slightly more in agreement with
the Latin. In 226 it is stated that the king, because of the favorable position of the stars,
wished to beget a child and therefore sent offhis men to find him a woman. In 41 and in
the Latin the sentepces are reverse, i.e., the king sent offhis men, because he wanted to
beget a child.