Note to GunnLeif Merl II 38VIII
[2] gengr ‘will go’: The refreshed reading in Hb has previously been taken as ‘eggiar’ (Hb 1892-6, 275; read as eggjar by Bret 1848-9 and Merl 2012) or emended variously to girnisk (Skj B) and getr (NN §2163F; Skald). But as refreshed the ms. seems to read ‘egiar’, with minuscule <g> and a contraction mark running above the three letters ‘egi’, rather than ‘eggiar’. On this basis, emendation to (or more precisely restoration of) gengr is proposed in the present edn. The word gengr written with a mark of contraction above the second <g> is seen in the ms. text of II 25/8 and II 31/6. This solution is more economical than those of Skj B and Skald and gives good sense in context, corresponding to DGB’s adibit ‘will approach’, as contrasted with eggjar, which Bret 1848-9 is obliged to translate freely as önsker ‘wishes’, not otherwise an attested meaning of the verb (ONP: eggja ‘sharpen, urge on, goad, incite’); Merl 2012 presupposes an otherwise undocumented intransitive use of eggja.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
- Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
- Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.