This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ..."Signy's Lament" we may perhaps have au early form of the very lay on which it is founded. Signy's words are, as we have seen, a soliloquy, in which, she is represented as addressing Sigmund and Siggeir, whom in imagination she conjures up before her. In the Saga similar speeches are represented as delivered ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ..."Signy's Lament" we may perhaps have au early form of the very lay on which it is founded. Signy's words are, as we have seen, a soliloquy, in which, she is represented as addressing Sigmund and Siggeir, whom in imagination she conjures up before her. In the Saga similar speeches are represented as delivered by Signy to the same persons; yet now not simply imaginatively but as if she were actually in their presence. On no occasion except when Sigmund and Siggeir came together in the final struggle, could Signy be pictured as thus addressing both at once. It was an impressive moment, when the royal palace was burning and King Siggeir's doom was sealed, just before the queen herself, the implacable avenger, desperate, but exultant, in death, went willingly to perish in the flames with the husband whom she had so long striven to involve in calamity.2 1 Cf., for example, Symons's statement (Paul's Orundriss, 2nd ed., 1898, IH, 652): "Die schonen letzten Worte der Signy, bevor sie sich in das Feuer der brennenden Halle stiirzt, sind unverkennbar Wiedergabe eines Liedfragments." Professor Bugge, commenting long ago on the poetic basis of the story, remarked justly that in general it is only where the characters speak in person that the author has followed his sources exactly; where, on the other hand, events are merely related, the prose account varies more from the lays on which it is based. (Norrasn FornktxriSi, Foriale, p. xxxvi). a As Symons says (1. c.): "Der Verlust dieser Lieder aus der Sigmundsage ist aufs tiefste zu beklagen; noch im Prosagewande der Saga verraten sie eine kernige epische Haltung und eine Altertiimlichkeit des Stils, womit nur wenige der erhaltenen eddischen Heldenlieder sich messen konnen. Und auch...
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