Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Einarr Skúlason, Lausavísur 10’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 173.
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1. víss (adj.): wise, certain(ly)
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hermð (noun f.; °-ar; -ir): [anger]
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3. á (prep.): on, at
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hestr (noun m.; °-s, dat. -i; -ar): horse, stallion
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hafa (verb): have
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fljóð (noun n.): woman
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3. ef (conj.): if
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vilja (verb): want, intend
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góðr (adj.): good
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
The couplet is cited in TGT to illustrate poetic play on words (ofljóst ‘too transparent’) as well as changes in vowel quantity and accent (barbarismus).
The surrounding prose, provided by Óláfr Þórðarson, gives a detailed explanation of the word-play. The first clause plus the last word in the second line (víst erumk hermð á hesti – góðan ‘I truly have anger at the horse – a good one’) can be paraphrased as víst legg ek á jó reiðiþokka góðan lit. ‘I truly place on the horse a strong (lit. ‘good’) dislike’, in which jó (nom. jór) = hesti (nom. hestr ‘horse’) and reiði = hermð (‘anger’). By rearranging the morphological boundaries the poet arrives at the following statement: Víst legg ek á Jóreiði þokka góðan ‘I truly place on Jóreiðr a strong (lit. ‘good’) liking’. The second clause, hefr fljóð, ef vill lit. ‘(he) has the woman if he wants to’, can be paraphrased as konu má ná ‘the woman (he) may obtain’ (if fljóð ‘woman’ is taken as acc. rather than nom.). Changing the morphological boundaries as well as the quantity of the vowel in the last word (má ná > má na) results in the nominal phrase konu Mána ‘the wife of Máni’. Taken together the two lines read as follows: ‘I truly have a strong liking for Jóreiðr, the wife of Máni’ (see also TGT 1884, 174-5 and Meissner 86). — Finnur Jónsson (TGT 1927, 92-3) rejects the above interpretation, which he attributes to Óláfr Þórðarson’s imagination. In his opinion, it is not possible to reconstruct how the two lines would have fitted into the context of the stanza because the helmingr has not been preserved in its entirety.
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