Anon (Ragn) 3VIII (Ragn 33)/5 — Feittira ‘fatten’
Þegi þú, heimdregi heitinn!
Hvat er þik, vesallátan?
Hefir þú aldrigi unnit,
þess er ek mega þrotna.
Feittira sverð- né sólar
sækitík at -leiki;
gafta þú hafnar hesti
— hvat rækir þik? — drykkju.
Þegi þú, heimdregi heitinn! Hvat er þik, vesallátan? Þú hefir aldrigi unnit, þess er ek mega þrotna. Feittira né sækitík sólar at sverðleiki; þú gafta drykkju hesti hafnar; hvat rækir þik?
Be silent, you, [rightly] called a stay-at-home! What concern is it of yours, shabby wretch? You have never achieved anything in which I may lag behind. You did not fatten the chasing-bitch of the sun [WOLF] in sword-play [BATTLE]; you did not give a drink to the horse of the harbour [SHIP]; what do you care?
readings
[5] Feittira: ‘feittada’ 1824b
notes
[5] feittira ‘you did not fatten’: The ms. has ‘feittada’, which Olsen and some later eds have emended to a supposed 2nd pers. sg. pret. form feitaðir ‘you fattened’, belonging to the first class weak conjugation. But feita ‘fatten’ is a weak verb of the third conjugation (ANG §§515-17), whose 2nd pers. sg. pret. is feittir. Here, however, the overall syntax of ll. 5-8 suggests that a negated verb is required, and this is provided by the ms. form ending in the negative particle -a, with the proclitic né negating the wolf-kenning sækitík sólar ‘the chasing-bitch of the sun’ in ll. 1-2 in a double negative construction; for similar constructions, cf. Þhorn Gldr 9/1-2I and Eil Þdr 11/7III and Note there, also Kuhn (1936a, 431). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) emends ms. ‘feittada’ to fæddir ‘you fed’, 2nd pers. sg. pret. of fæða ‘feed’. Kock (Skald) emends to fættuða, 2nd pers. pl. pret. of fæta ‘have to do with’, with the negative particle -a suffixed.