Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Óláfr svartaskáld Leggsson, Love poem 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 318.
Kœnn njóti vel vænnar
vinr minn konu sinnar
— víst esat dapr of drósir
drengr — ok eigi lengi.
Njóti kœnn vinr minn vænnar konu sinnar vel ok eigi lengi; víst esat drengr dapr of drósir.
‘May my wise friend enjoy his fair wife well and keep [her] for a long time; indeed, the man is not downcast on account of women. ’
The half-stanza illustrates the rhetorical figure amphibologia, i.e. a word that could have more than one meaning. In the present stanza, this is illustrated by the word eigi (l. 4), which can be either 3rd pers. sg. pres. subj. of the verb eiga ‘have, keep, own’ or the adv. eigi ‘not’ (TGT 1927, 60): Hér er óvíst, hvárt þessi sǫgn, eigi, er viðrorð neitiligt eða orð eiginligt ‘Here it is uncertain whether this word, eigi, is a negative adverb or a real verb’ (see also Note to l. 4 below).
[1-2]: The lines are peculiar in that they contain an abundance of internal rhymes on vowels + <n> in fully stressed positions: ‑œnn : ‑ænn- (l. 1); ‑in- : ‑inn : ‑inn- (l. 2).
Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.
Kœnn njóti vel vænnar
vin minn konu sinnar
— víst †erat† dapr †vm† drósir
drengr — ok eigi lengi.
Kénn nioti vel vęnnar vin minn konv sinnar vist erat dapr | vm drósir drengr ok æigi længi .
(VEÞ)
Kœnn njóti vel vænnar
vinr minn konu sinnar
— víst er að dapr af drósar
drengr — ok eigi lengi.
Kenn nioti vel vennar vinr minn konu sinnar víst er að dapr af drosar drengr | ok æigi lengí.
(TW)
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