Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise 27’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 604.
Haki Kraki
hamdi framdi
geirum eirum
gotna flotna.
Hreytir neytir
hodda brodda
brendiz endiz
báli stáli.
Haki hamdi gotna geirum; Kraki framdi flotna eirum. {Hreytir hodda} brendiz báli; {neytir brodda} endiz stáli.
Haki killed men with spears; Kraki (‘Pole-ladder’) promoted men with mercy. {The scatterer of hoards} [GENEROUS MAN = Haki] was burnt on a pyre; {the user of pikes} [WARRIOR = Kraki] was killed by a steel weapon.
Mss: W(116) (FoGT)
Editions: Skj AII, 218, Skj BII, 235, Skald II, 122; SnE 1848-87, II, 226-7, III, 160, FoGT 1884, 138-9, 277-8, FoGT 2004, 47, 72, 135-6, FoGT 2014, 30-1, 112-13.
Context: As for sts 23-6. This stanza follows directly after st. 26 and offers a studied variation on st. 24.
Notes: [All]: This stanza should be compared and contrasted with st. 24. Both are in the same metre (inn nýi háttr). Minimal word changes between the two stanzas enable the poet to rearrange the syntax of st. 27’s four clauses, so that clause 1 reads straight down the left-hand side of ll. 1-4, clause 2 straight down the right-hand side of ll. 1-4, clause 3 straight down the left-hand side of ll. 5-8 and clause 4 straight down the right-hand side of ll. 5-8. — [2] hamdi ‘killed’: Lit. ‘restricted’. — [3] eirum ‘with mercy’: Lit. ‘with mercies’. The unusual use of the pl. is doubtless to provide the necessary internal rhyme with geirum ‘with spears’.
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