Medieval riddarasögur in adaptation from the French: Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr and Parcevals saga

Medieval riddarasogur in adaptation from the French: Fldres saga ok Blankiflur and Parcevals saga Firstiy I must mention that I came to the present topic by a rather roundabout path. I had been working on aspects of Chretien's Yvain that had proved an enigma to m e and decided to examine these same aspects in the other medieval versions of this story that derived directiy or indirecdy from Chretien to see h o w they were worked out there. In the course of this investigation I was disappointed as much as anything with the Icelandic hens saga. Subsequendy it did not altogether come as a surprise to learn of an article entitled 'Yvain-hens saga: translation or travesty?'1 I chose Fldres saga ok Blankiflur and Parcevals saga, two very different types of story, to see for m y own satisfaction whether or not these adaptations were more convincing than hens saga, or whether all three were cast in the same mould, because I am aware that assessment of the riddarasogur generaUy has been largely negative.2 One accepts, of course, that one can expect the riddarasOgur to reduce thensources considerably, especially when it comes to soliloquy, dialogue, descriptive passages - for example, of nature, the trappings of courdy society such as food, clothing, precious stones, furnishings - either because such detail did not appeal to the translator, or because he felt it would not appeal to his audience or whether his own vocabulary was inadequate to cope. And on the question of vocabulary, it is indeed the case that explanations of foreign words are not uncommon, while some words are not known outside a given saga. Also, critics have been diligent in showing where some phrase in the original has been misunderstood, or the translator has, in skipping over something, broken the continuity of his story. O n e expects also the relative lack of comment on the translator's part, the typical saga 'objectivity'. All these things will apply, of course, to the two sagas I am looking at here. At the same time it must be said that clearly both saga writers, for all their extensive alterations, keep remarkably close to their sources over long periods with at times quite literal translation. The ultimate question is, however, to what extent the adaptations can stand in their own right and on their own terms, or to what 1 By Remy Schosmann, in Les Sagas de Chevaliers (Riddarasogur). Actes de la Ve Conference Internationale sur les Sagas (Toulon. Juillet 1982), ed. Regis Boyer, Paris, 1985, 193-203. 2 See, for instance, Marianne Kalinke, Norse Romance (Riddarasogur), in Old NorseIcelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica 45, Ithaca and London, 1985, 316. Also, with specific reference to Parcevals saga, Paul Bibire, From riddarasaga to lygisaga: the Norse response to romance, in Les Sagas de Chevaliers, 64. 24 /. Campbell extent they remain hastily conceived and carelessly executed shortened versions of popular themes. It goes without saying, of course, that I can talk of these works only in the form in which they occur in editions that are available to me.1 I am mindful of Marianne KaUnke's warning, firsdy that 'our assessment of the thirteenth-century translations rests on the testimony of manuscripts that are geographically and chronologicaUy at some remove from their original composition'2 and, secondly, that 'the scholar who would devote himself to the riddarasogur but does not have ready access to the manuscripts is handicapped.'3 She lists the two works I have undertaken to talk about here among those that are 'not yet available in editions that meet contemporary standards."4 The French Flore et Blancheflor5 is a love story through and through, and hardly what one might think of as a roman de chevalerie, except perhaps inasmuch as Flore is knighted towards the end of the story by the Babylonian king. Fldres saga ok Blankiflur, particularly through the drastic alterations it makes to the closing stages, becomes something of what w e imagine a saga of knights to be, albeit with, as Geraldine Barnes has demonstrated, strong echoes of the Norse legends of saints, the author exploiting the not...