[3-4]: The sense is that the king cannot be prevailed on (e.g. by his counsellors) to give up his predilection for women – an accusation frequently made against Henry I by churchmen and other contemporaries (see I 51 Note to [All]). Merl 2012 would instead modify the normally accepted ms. reading hans erat to hann sérat, translating er versteht es nicht ‘he does not understand it’, but the required sense of sjá seems to occur only in combination with prepositions (LP: séa; Fritzner: sjá).
References
- Bibliography
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.