Sigv Lv 9I/4 — snytrask ‘grow wise’
Sendi mér inn mæri
— man þengill sá drengi —
(síð munk heldr at hróðri)
hnytr þjóðkonungr (snytrask).
Opt, en okkr bað skipta
Óttar í tvau dróttinn,
endask môl, sem myndim,
manndjarfr, fǫðurarfi.
Inn mæri þjóðkonungr sendi mér hnytr; sá þengill man drengi; munk snytrask at hróðri heldr síð. Môl endask opt, en manndjarfr dróttinn bað okkr Óttar skipta í tvau, sem myndim fǫðurarfi.
The famous great king sent nuts to me; that prince remembers his fellows; I shall probably grow wise at encomium rather late. Meals often come to an end, and the man-bold lord told Óttarr and me to divide [the nuts] in two as we would a father’s inheritance.
readings
[4] snytrask: so Flat, 71ˣ, 76aˣ, vitrask DG8, letjask Tóm, ‘snytras’ 73aˣ
notes
[4] snytrask ‘grow wise’: The verb is found nowhere else, but Kock (NN §2010A) rightly points out that it is presupposed by the agent noun snytrir ‘one who makes wise’ (LP: snytrir). The reading letjask ‘to become unwilling or slow’ chosen by Konráð Gíslason (1892, 39) and by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B, and so also hnetr for hnytr, for the sake of the hending) may in fact be cleverer, but it is found only in Tóm, whose readings for this stanza are generally unreliable. It is easy to explain why snytrask should have been altered to letjask (to rhyme with hnetr once it replaced the older hnytr), but it would not be easy to explain the reverse alteration. What Sigvatr seems to mean, with high irony, is that some day he will learn to compose verses commensurate with the king’s gifts to him. Jón Skaptason (1983, 192) takes the meaning to be ‘I shall not soon become wise (or: lazy) from praising [you]’. Poole (2005a, 273), largely in agreement with Kock, translates, ‘it will be a long time before I devote more art to praise poetry’, and it is quite possible that this is what is meant.