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Stories Set Forth with Fair Words: The Evolution of Medieval Romance in Iceland
Stories Set Forth with Fair Words: The Evolution of Medieval Romance in Iceland
Stories Set Forth with Fair Words: The Evolution of Medieval Romance in Iceland
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Stories Set Forth with Fair Words: The Evolution of Medieval Romance in Iceland

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This book is an investigation of the foundation and evolution of romance in Iceland. The narrative type arose from the introduction of French narratives into the alien literary environment of Iceland and the acculturation of the import to indigenous literary traditions. The study focuses on the oldest Icelandic copies of three chansons de geste and four of the earliest indigenous romances, both types transmitted in an Icelandic codex from around 1300. The impact of the translated epic poems on the origin and development of the Icelandic romances was considerable, yet they have been largely neglected by scholars in favour of the courtly romances. This study attests the role played by the epic poems in the composition of romance in Iceland, which introduced the motifs of the aggressive female wooer and of Christian-heathen conflict.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 23, 2017
ISBN9781786830692
Stories Set Forth with Fair Words: The Evolution of Medieval Romance in Iceland
Author

Marianne E. Kalinke

Professor M.E. Kalinke (retired) was until May 2006 Trowbridge Chair in Literary Studies Emerita and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Germanic languages and Comparative Literature Emerita, University of Illinois.

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    Stories Set Forth with Fair Words - Marianne E. Kalinke

    Preface

    By the end of the thirteenth century Icelandic literature was both sizeable and varied, indeed quite extraordinary. Its proponents excelled in producing mythography, historiography, hagiography, biography and prose epic. The last is exemplified by the unique Íslendingasögur, Sagas of Icelanders, also known as Family Sagas in the English-speaking world. Into this flourishing literary scene, translations of more or less contemporary French literature were introduced, that is, courtly lays and romances and the epic poems known as chansons de geste. The earliest renderings of these foreign narratives occurred in the second quarter of the thirteenth century in Norway, and before long the translations were transmitted to Iceland. There they were copied, completed, revised and adapted. In no time they inspired Icelanders to try their own hand at this imported narrative type. A new genre was born in Iceland, the riddarasaga, romance.

    The Icelanders’ enthusiasm for romance has not been shared by modern scholars. W. P. Ker lamented that foreign romance ‘came to Iceland just at the time when the native literature, or the highest form of it at any rate, was failing; the failure of the native literature let in these foreign competitors’.¹ This pronouncement was to be repeated with variation in the early decades of the twentieth century. The first and to this day most sweeping and still authoritative investigation of the foreign imports and competitors of Iceland’s indigenous literature is Margaret Schlauch’s Romance in Iceland. The scholar pointed out that ‘towards the end of the Middle Ages, Icelandic literature … was more cosmopolitan than any other in Europe. It was lamentably inferior to the older type of narrative, to be sure, but it was greatly varied; it had plundered the whole world for themes.’ ² Schlauch’s study of Icelandic romance, based, for want of editions at the time, in large part on manuscripts, was catholic, including texts understood by many scholars as belonging to different genres, the riddarasögur (chivalric sagas) and fornaldarsögur (mythical-heroic sagas). As she noted, ‘the Icelanders were bafflingly eclectic; the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries saw a veritable syncretism of romance in their literature’ (p. 16). When Schlauch stated that Icelandic romance is ‘lamentably inferior to the older type of narrative’, she was referring, of course, to the Íslendingasögur, the Sagas of Icelanders, the failure of which Ker mourned. Whether all romances are inferior to the traditional Icelandic sagas is debatable; not all sagas of Icelanders evince a uniform high quality of narrative. The romances too are of varying quality, but they are not necessarily inferior narratives; rather, they are a different type of narrative.

    French courtly literature was introduced to the North with the rendition of Thomas de Bretagne’s Tristan into Old Norse in 1226. Translations of other French works followed, of Arthurian and other types of romance, Breton lays and chansons de geste. Several translations are ascribed, like Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, to the patronage of King Hákon Hákonarson of Norway (r. 1217–63), and unattributed translations of similar works are thought also to have been undertaken during his reign. Certain evidence in support of this is lacking, however, and it is not out of the question that some French texts were translated in Iceland. While this remains in the realm of speculation, the role of Iceland in preserving and transmitting the translations of foreign literature is indisputable. With but very few exceptions, the translations are extant solely in Icelandic manuscripts.

    This book explores the foundation, growth and flowering of romance in Iceland. It is a story of translation and transcription; of manuscripts imported to Iceland from Norway; of texts copied, redacted and revised in Iceland; of scribal intervention in plot, structure and style; of imported texts adapted to new ends; and, finally, of the creation of original romances. Icelanders imported a foreign genre, adopted it wholeheartedly, and at the same time adapted it to indigenous narrative conventions. Icelandic romance is the product of cultural transfer and acculturation, the outgrowth of an interlingual and intralingual process.

    The French lays, romances and epic poems translated in Norway were metrical compositions. The octosyllabic rhymed couplets of the lays and romances, and the alexandrines of the assonanced stanzas of the chansons de geste were turned into an alliteratively ornamented prose in translation. Apart from the Strengleikar, the translation of a collection of lays, and Elíss saga ok Rósamundar, the rendering of a romance epic, which are preserved in a thirteenth-century Norwegian manuscript produced only a few decades after their translation, the other translations of French literature known or thought to have been undertaken in Norway are extant solely in considerably later Icelandic manuscripts. That is the case with Tristrams saga and the Arthurian Ívens saga, Möttuls saga and Parcevals saga. Since the Strengleikar and Elíss saga are our sole witnesses to the translation process in thirteenth-century Norway, this study commences with a consideration of the transformation of French verse into the courtly Norse prose.

    With but few exceptions, Icelandic copyists seem to have perceived their role, whether consciously or not, more as editors than scribes. They amplified or reduced texts; they modified their plot, distinct style or structure. The French source of Elíss saga was defective, and when the Norwegian manuscript of the incomplete translation reached Iceland, one ambitious author composed a continuation, but in a style strikingly at odds with that of the translator. In turn, the Norwegian translation with its continuation was repeatedly copied and redacted in Iceland. The case of Erex saga, which derives from Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide, and which originally was most likely a fairly faithful translation from the French, is unique. The author of the text preserved in Iceland not only removed every aspect of what presumably had been a courtly prose style but also condensed and modified the plot. At the same time he interpolated additional episodes from another translation, thereby affecting the narrative’s structure and meaning. While some Icelandic copyists did not alter the substance of the Norwegian translations that were imported to Iceland, for example, Tristrams saga or Ívens saga, others revised a transmitted text significantly. Some narratives deriving from French sources, such as Partalopa saga, underwent acculturation as they were transformed under the influence of contemporary Icelandic literature.

    The oldest Icelandic codex transmitting both translated and original riddarasögur dates from the very beginning of the fourteenth century. The manuscript is noteworthy for containing translations of three chansons de geste, that is, Elíss saga, Flóvents saga and Mágus saga jarls, and three Icelandic romances, Bærings saga, Konráðs saga keisarasonar and Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, the last usually designated a fornaldarsaga, although it is in fact a multi-tiered bridal-quest romance, a riddarasaga. The medieval codex is believed to have contained a fourth Icelandic romance, namely, Mírmanns saga, a copy of which survives in a seventeenth-century manuscript. The translations of the chansons de geste, unlike those of the courtly romances, are relatively unknown and have been considerably neglected in the study of Icelandic romance. The epic poems imported to Iceland played an important role, however, in the development of the riddarasögur, for they were the source of many a motif and theme that was subsequently adopted, adapted and developed by authors of romances.

    A remarkable aspect of Icelandic literature is the proclivity of copyists, better said, authors, to tinker with existing texts, to rewrite them with a view to telling a better story. No one addressed more compellingly the impulse of Icelanders to rework an existing text than the author of the longer version of Mágus saga jarls, which derives ultimately from a chanson de geste. In an apologia the writer attributes the existence of variants of a tale to critical authors who considered an older version to be ineptly told and who therefore eloquently amplified the story. This occurred in two of the riddarasögur preserved in the oldest codex of romances, the aforementioned Mágus saga jarls and Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar. Both sagas are also found in another manuscript that postdates their earliest attestation by about two centuries, but in longer versions of the narratives presumed to have been composed in the late thirteenth century. The longer redactions evince a grappling with style and structure at the same time that they reveal their authors’ creative impulse to dramatise a story through extended dialogue and more penetrating characterisation.

    Several sagas investigated in this book are among the earliest indigenous riddarasögur, to judge by their inclusion in the same early fourteenth-century codex as the translations of chansons de geste. They are the aforementioned Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, Bærings saga, Konráðs saga keisarasonar and Mírmanns saga. These sagas are clearly indebted to the imported literature. Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar introduced the indigenous maiden–king motif, however, and is the oldest bridal-quest romance in Iceland. The authors of Bærings saga, Konráðs saga keisarasonar and Mírmanns saga were remarkably innovative in their compositions, which blend both foreign and traditional motifs and themes.

    The Icelandic romances attest that their authors were acquainted with, and critics of, each other’s work. They responded to contemporary literature in several ways: they rewrote a story with a view to improving it; they incorporated motifs and scenes from existing romances to fashion their own; and they composed tales in response to contemporary narratives. Konráðs saga keisarasonar provided the impetus to the composition of two romances, Jarlmanns saga ok Hermanns and Þjalar-Jóns saga. While the former is a critical response to the conflict in Konráðs saga keisarasonar, the latter is a sequel that continues the story of its antagonist.

    The creation of longer versions of existing romances, such as the longer version of Mágus saga jarls, the consequence of different narrative strategies, varying style and the incorporation of new matter, seems to have been one step, perhaps the first, in composing an original romance. The authors of the riddarasögur were inspired by and derived narrative matter from both the imported translations and their own literary traditions. The indigenous romances proliferated, both in copies and in variant versions. Ultimately the Icelandic romances arose from the transfer of a foreign genre and its acculturation to indigenous literary norms. The authors of the earliest riddarasögur were talented tellers of tales and the originally foreign literary type became in a relatively short time a popular Icelandic genre.

    No attempt is made here at a comprehensive survey of Icelandic romance. Rather, this is a study of the origin and development of the earliest translated and indigenous romances, of the transmission, modification, adaptation and recreation of both translations and original Icelandic compositions. The point of departure is the oldest Icelandic codex transmitting translated and indigenous romances. The interventions and intrusions of copyists and redactors, or authors, if you will, in contemporary narratives generated a kaleidoscopic variation of imported and indigenous themes, motifs and plots. The aggregate of romance in Iceland manifests their authors’ belief, occasionally expressed in commentary, that they can do their predecessors one better, that they can indeed improve a tale.

    Most of the Old Norse and Old Icelandic quotations in this study are in the unnormalised orthography of the editions. Unless otherwise noted, the translations are my own. In some instances, where the original language is deemed not to be essential to the argument, I cite the passages only in translation, but refer to the pagination of the original text.

    1

    Translation in Norway

    Romance was introduced to the North with the rendering into Old Norse of Thomas de Bretagne’s Tristan at the behest of King Hákon Hákonarson of Norway (r. 1217–63). Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar was followed by the translation of a collection of French lays, several romances and one epic poem. Except for the Strengleikar, the collective title given to the Old Norse version of the lays, and Elíss saga ok Rósamundar, a translation of Élie de Saint-Gilles, a chanson de geste, no French texts translated in Norway have been preserved in Norwegian manuscripts. Despite the certain evidence that Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, Ívens saga (Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain) and Möttuls saga (Le Lai du cort mantel) were translated in Norway, these works have been transmitted solely in Icelandic manuscripts. These three narratives and other French romances believed to have been translated in Norway, such as Parcevals saga (Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval), as well as translations of uncertain provenance, such as Erex saga (Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide) and Partalopa saga (Partonopeu de Blois), reveal a penchant of Icelanders for rewriting. They were self-assertive authors who revised, added, subtracted and restructured text. Despite the tremendous debt incurred to Norway for introducing continental literature to the North, the fact remains that most of the extant texts no longer substantially represent the Norse renderings. They are Icelandic redactions that manifest a diversity of approaches to transmitting this literature, including revision and recreation under the impact of indigenous traditions.

    Some time during the reign of King Hákon Hákonarson, twenty-one Breton lays and the epic poem Élie de Saint-Gilles were translated into Old Norse. They are preserved in the Norwegian manuscript De la Gardie 4–7, dated around 1270. The Strengleikar collection and Elíss saga ok Rósamundar were copied only a couple of decades after their translation and are extraordinarily important, since they alone have been transmitted in a manuscript from their country of origin. Elíss saga is incomplete, for its French source was fragmentary, but only a couple of decades after it was written down in Norway, an Icelander copied it and supplied a continuation.¹ Two of the translated lays have also been transmitted in Icelandic redactions and are significant for assessing the relationship of the Norwegian texts to the original translation. The other translations known to have been commissioned by King Hákon or thought to have been translated during his reign have been preserved solely in Icelandic manuscripts dating some 150–450 years after their rendition.

    Except for Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar and Elíss saga ok Rósamundar, the translators are anonymous. Tristrams saga opens with the statement that King Hákon commissioned Bróðir Robert, Brother Robert, in the year 1226 to translate the story of Tristram and Ísönd á norrænu (into Norse).² Elíss saga concludes with the similar statement that King Hákon had Roðbert ábóti, Abbot Robert, translate ‘þessi nœrrœnu bok yðr til skemtanar’³ (‘this Norse book for your enjoyment’). Scholars believe that Brother Robert and Abbot Robert are identical, the latter being older and having moved up in the monastic hierarchy. Just before this self-identification, Abbot Robert indicates that the story he has translated is incomplete. He writes: ‘En huessu sem Elis ratt þæim vandræðum oc huessu hann kom hæim til Frannz með Rosamundam, þa er æigi a bok þessi skrifat’ (p. 116) (‘But how Elis got out of these dificulties and how he came back home to France with Rosamunda is not written in this book’). The statement suggests that the manuscript from which Robert was translating did not have the complete text; it was defective, ending as it did in mid-story. An Icelander was to pick up later where Robert’s French manuscript left off and to produce a continuation.

    Scholars generally take at face value the prologue of Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar that gives the date of translation, the name of the translator and that of his patron.Tristrams saga introduced a genre, courtly romance, and an alliterative prose style in Norway, both of which were to have a profound effect on the composition of romance in Iceland. The complete saga has been transmitted solely in seventeenth-century Icelandic manuscripts, however, and these diverge considerably from the thirteenth-century Norse rendering. Only the Strengleikar collection and Elíss saga ok Rósamundar are extant in a Norwegian manuscript produced within a couple of decades after their translation. They are the earliest witnesses to the transformation of verse into prose, the effect of the courtly Norse style on content, and the impact of scribal interference already in Norway on the texts that were subsequently imported to Iceland. The Breton lays were composed in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, while the chanson de geste from which Elíss saga derives features alexandrines in assonanced stanzas called laisses. Yet the two types of versification resulted in the same alliteratively ornamented prose in translation that is also found in the other translations known to have been undertaken during King Hákon’s reign.

    Eleven of the Strengleikar narratives are attributed to Marie de France, and the entire collection is found only in the manuscript British Library, Harley 978. The manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 1104 contains nine of her lays. The French lays in the Harley manuscript and their Norse versions in the De la Gardie manuscript preserve the largest number of Marie’s lays. The sources of six other Strengleikar are found in other collections, and the French sources of another four Strengleikar are no longer extant. In the earliest, nineteenth-century edition of the Strengleikar the editors voiced the belief that the De la Gardie manuscript contained ‘the first fair copy of the translator’s rough draft’.⁵ This position is no longer tenable.

    The most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the Strengleikar collection and their sources, including all the extant French manuscripts, was undertaken by Ingvil Brügger Budal in her doctoral thesis of 2009.⁶ She notes that between the original translation, presumably in the period 1226–50, and its transmission in the manuscript De la Gardie 4–7, at least four redactors were at work, two of whom were scribes who may have produced the first copy of the translation. This manuscript, no longer extant, may have been the source of the copy in De la Gardie 4–7. Budal argues cogently that the translation was made not in Norway but rather in Anglo-Norman England. There is no evidence that Old French manuscripts were found in Norway at the time, but the translator would have had access to at least two manuscripts of French lays in England, where a number of Norwegians, both religious and lay, are known to have been in the period 1220–60.⁷ Budal demonstrates that deviations in the Norse translations vis-à-vis the French sources occurred at various stages of the text, commencing with variants in the extant French manuscripts themselves; conscious or accidental changes made by the translator, who, Budal argues, is the same for the entire collection; and modifications introduced by copyists of the Norse translation.⁸

    The collection of lays in the Harley manuscript opens with a prologue of fifty-six verses in which Marie states that lays were composed by their authors to perpetuate the memory of adventures; some of these stories she herself has heard, and she has decided to put them into verse.⁹ The Norse translation contains a prologue, Forrœða, in which Marie’s preface is preceded by that of the translator who declares that the esteemed King Hákon had the lays translated from the French language into Norse for what may be called lioða bok (a book of lays), since Breton poets composed lays, lioðsonga, from the stories known to them.¹⁰ The translator goes on to say that these lays ‘are performed on harps, rebecs,¹¹ hurdy-gurdies, lyres, dulcimers, psalteries, rotes, and other stringed instruments – i … oðrum strænglæikum – of all kinds’.

    In translation, the lays attributed to Marie de France have incurred reduction of text extending from 5 per cent to 49.5 per cent. Bisclaretz ljóð, which renders Marie’s Bisclavret, has suffered the least condensation; it lost sixteen of its 318 verses. This is followed by Desiré, a translation of an anonymous lay with the same name. At 764 verses, this lay is more than twice the length of Bisclavret, and forty-six of its verses are not found in the Norse translation.¹² Marie’s Bisclavret, like the sources of the other lays in the Strengleikar collection, is in verse. While the Norse renderings are in prose, this is a rhythmical language characterised by adjectival, nominal and verbal collocations, which occasionally are synonymous and not infrequently alliterate. For example, when Bisclavret’s wife asks him about his frequent absences, she says: ‘Sire, jeo sui en tel esfrei’ (v. 43) (‘Lord, I am so fraught with anxiety’).¹³ In Bisclaretz ljóð this is transmitted as: ‘Ec em þa iafnan rygg ok rædd ok i miklum angre’ (‘I am always sad and scared and in great sorrow’) (pp. 86–7). The single word esfrei is rendered with a triple collocation, of which two words alliterate (indicated in bold italics). Similarly, the wife’s exhortation to her lover to rejoice: ‘Amis, fete le, seiez liez’ (v. 111) (‘Friend, she said, rejoice’) is rendered, without alliteration, with a synonymous adjectival triplet: ‘Unasti vær nu fæginn. bliðr ok glaðr’ (‘Sweetheart, be joyous, happy, and glad’) (pp. 90–1). She goes on to offer him her love and body and in response he thanks her warmly and accepts her pledge: ‘Cil l’en mercie bonement / e la fiancé de li prent / e el le met par serement’ (vv. 117–19) (‘He thanked her warmly and accepted her pledge, whereupon she received his oath’) (p. 69). Here too the translator renders one word, fiancé, with an alliterating couplet and additionally elaborates similarly upon the meaning of the oath: ‘hann þakkaðe hænni morgum þokkum ok viðr tok tru hænnar ok trygðar fæstum. ok þui nest tok hann æaf hænni. at hann skylldi uruggr um væra ok bua uræddr’ (p. 90) (‘he thanked her with many thanks and accepted her promise and pledges of loyalty. Then he took an oath from her, that he might be confident of her and live unafraid’) (p. 91). Throughout not only Bisclaretz ljóð but also the other Strengleikar, the translator employs synonymous doublets and triplets, often alliterating, for dramatic emphasis and to convey emotion. The stylistic elaboration of the French text suggests a striving for euphony by the Norse translator.

    Despite the loss of sixteen verses from Bisclavret, the Norse translation adheres relatively closely to its source. There is, however, one remarkable deviation from the French lay that at first blush suggests either a conscious change or suppression of text. When Bisclavret, in the company of the king, sees his faithless wife for the first time, he takes singular revenge; he tears the nose off her face: ‘Le neis li esracha del vis’ (v. 235). The Norse translation diverges: ‘hann uppræistizc ok ræif af hænni klæði sin’ (‘he reared up and tore off her clothes’) (pp. 94–5). In his classic study of the Strengleikar, Rudolf Meissner suggested over a century ago that the Norse translator had recoiled at such harsh vengeance, and has only her clothes ripped off.¹⁴ His interpretation of this difference rests on the firm conviction that the extant Norwegian manuscript faithfully transmits the work of a translator who intentionally recreated the French texts (p. 293). I suggest here, and have done so elsewhere, that deletion of the lost nose in favour of lost clothes was not the work of the translator but rather of a later scribe.¹⁵

    An Icelandic redaction of Bisclaretz ljóð with the deviating title Tiódels saga here reads: ‘reyf af henne oll hennar klæde og þar med nefid og vyda holldid kramid’ (11. 240–1)¹⁶ (‘He tore all her clothes off her along with the nose and scratched off much of her skin’). The Icelandic saga affirms that the translator had indeed accurately rendered the nasectomy in v. 235 of Bisclavret. The omission of the nose in the Norwegian manuscript may be ascribed to the translator’s propensity to render a single French word or phrase in alliterative, synonymous or other collocations, and it may be that Tiódels saga transmits the doublet klæði and nef found in the original translation. By the time a copy of the text found its way into the manuscript De la Gardie 4–7, the nose had been expunged, whether consciously or not, by a Norwegian scribe. The conclusion of Bisclaretz ljóð supports the thesis that the reading in Tiódels saga transmits that of the original translation, for the ljóð ends with the statement that all the wife’s female offspring were ‘afnæfiaðar ok neflausur’ (‘without noses and noseless’) (pp. 98–9), which echoes the French ‘senz nes sunt neies / E sovent irent esnasees’ (vv. 313–14) (‘were born without noses and lived noseless’) (p. 72).

    Budal’s study of the Strengleikar is the first to consider all the extant French manuscripts of the lays; she is able to show that what might seem to be a deviation from the French actually represents translation of a variant in one or the other French manuscript. In other words, when manuscripts unknown to or disregarded by earlier scholars are taken into account, what might appear to be divergences in the Norse translations are actually renderings of variants in the French manuscripts. A striking example, albeit one not noted by Budal, occurs in the translation of Chèvrefeuille, at 118 verses the shortest of the lays. The tale relates that Tristram learns that the queen will be travelling to Tintagel for the Pentecost feast, and along the road that she is to travel Tristan cuts off a hazel bough on which he carves his name and a message of sixteen verses.¹⁷ This message has been a subject of controversy, scholars disagreeing whether Tristan carved the substance of the verses on the stick, or the verses refer to a previous message, or that he etched only his name on the stick, but that this evoked the reminiscences alluded to in the sixteen verses.¹⁸ The dispute concerning the meaning of vv. 63–78 devolves from the reading of vv. 61–2 in the Harley 978 manuscript, which reads: ‘Ceo fu la summe de l’escrit / Qu’il li aveit mandé e dit’ (‘that is the gist of the message that he had sent her’). The rendering in Geitarlauf – ‘Nu var ristið a stavenom’ (‘now there was carved on the stick’)¹⁹ – suggests that the translator interpreted the ambiguous verses to mean that the entire text was inscribed on the hazelwood stick. It turns out that this interpretation is not original with the Norse translator; it had already existed in at least one manuscript, Bibl. Nat. nouv. acq. fr. 1104, which writes: ‘ce fu la some de lescrit / qui fu el baston que je dit’ (‘This is the gist of the message on the stick that I described’).²⁰ In other words, Geitarlauf here transmits a French variant, a variant unknown to or largely ignored by the scholars who quibbled over the content of Tristan’s message.

    Contrary to Meissner, who thought that deviations from the then known French sources were to be ascribed to the Norse translator, I believe that on the whole the various Strengleikar were fairly accurate translations of content, despite the stylistic differences and elaborations. The aforementioned Tiódels saga is an Icelandic redaction that considerably deviates from its source Bisclaretz ljóð and may rightly be considered a recreation (see chapter 5). Nonetheless, it transmits readings reflecting the French source, therefore providing evidence on the one hand of their existence in the translation, but on the other of corruption in the Norwegian manuscript De la Gardie 4–7. While Tiódels saga is an Icelandic adaptation or reworking of Bisclaretz ljóð, another lay, Guiamars ljóð has been transmitted in an Icelandic copy from the year 1737 that evinces not only minimal textual intervention by its copyist but also the preservation of original readings that were lost in the thirteenth-century Norwegian manuscript. A comparison of the Norwegian Guiamars ljóð and the Icelandic Gvímars saga with the source, Guigemar, establishes that the Norwegian redaction, despite its antiquity, is defective by reason of textual attrition and scribal misreadings. The Icelandic redaction, at a remove of some five centuries from the translation, contains instances of agreement with the French source, where the Norwegian redaction had already incurred loss of text or acquired corrupt readings in the process of scribal transmission.

    The most striking discrepancy between a reading in the French source and in Guiamars ljóð occurs in v. 219, where we are told that an old lord kept his wife in an enclosure in a garden at the foot of the keep: ‘en un vergier, suz le dongun’, but in the Norwegian manuscript the old husband had an alnar viðan garð (p. 18), an ell-wide wall, built. This turns out to be a scribal misreading, rather than the translator’s change, for Gvímars saga confirms that the translator had rendered verse 219 accurately with ‘i alldinvidargarde under turne borgarennar’ (‘in an orchard below the castle tower’).²¹ Gvímars saga contains ample proof that the source of the Icelandic copy could not have been the text in the Norwegian manuscript, and that by the time the translation was copied in Norway, the manuscript had incurred not only errors by one or more copyists but also textual loss. One notable example shall suffice. In the French lay we are told that the eponymous protagonist showed no visible interest in love and ‘was thus considered a lost cause by stranger and friend alike’²² (‘Pur ceo le tienent a peri / E li estrange e si ami’).²³ The translation of this couplet is not found in the Norwegian manuscript, but here too Gvímars saga attests that the verses had been translated; in the Icelandic manuscript this reads: ‘og hugdu þad aller at hann være tijndur so kunnuger sem ükunnuger’ (122:27–8) (and everyone thought that he was lost, both acquaintances and strangers).

    As was seen in the Norse translation of Bisclavret, the translation of Guigemar is characterised by expansion occasioned by its alliterative style. A striking example is the portrayal of the old priest who guards the young wife. Marie tells us that ‘les plus bas membres out perduz’ (v. 257) (‘he had lost his lower members’) (p. 46). Rather than rendering this literally, the translator focuses on the consequences of being a eunuch. Two alliterating synonymous couplets depict his physical state and a third alliterating couplet reveals the source of this: the priest is ‘blæikr ok bloðlaus. kalldr ok kolnaðr or ollum likams losta’ (p. 18) (‘pallid and bloodless, cold and frigid, without any physical desires’) (p. 19). Gvímars saga, the Icelandic redaction, contains an additional alliterating synonymous collocation: ‘bleikur og blödlaus, kalldur, kölnadur og sorgfullur, þurr og þornadur ad

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