Ormr Frag 2III/4 — ljósa ‘a clear’
Ek hef orðgnótt miklu
— opt finnum þat — minni,
— framm telk leyfð fyr lofða
ljósa — an myndak kjósa.
Ek hef miklu minni orðgnótt, an myndak kjósa; finnum þat opt; telk ljósa leyfð framm fyr lofða.
I have much less word-abundance than I would choose; we [I] often find that; I deliver a clear [poem of] praise before men.
readings
[4] ljósa: ljós U
notes
[4] ljósa (f. acc. sg.) ‘clear’: Skj A reads ms. ljós, f. nom. sg. or n. nom./acc. pl. (cf. SnE 1848-87, II, 340) and emends to ljósa, followed by all subsequent eds. Considerations of sense and word order speak for construing the adj. with leyfð ‘[poem of] praise’ (f. acc. sg.; l. 3), as advocated by Kock (NN §900; cf. SnE 1998), rather than with orðgnótt ‘word-abundance’ (l. 1), as supposed in Skj B; Kock cites parallel uses of ljóss. In an earlier interpretation, explicitly rejected by Kock (NN §900), Rask (SnE 1818, 176), followed by SnE 1848-87, I, 468-9 n. 10, reads ms. ljós as ljósir (m. nom. pl.) and emends to ljósri (f. dat. sg.) putatively a substantivised adj. referring to a woman who is the subject of men’s praise. But this depends, as Kock notes, upon the separation of the prep. fyr from ljósri, as apparent in the translation in SnE 1848-87, I, 469, laudem virorum coram candida (muliere) recito ‘I recite the praise of men in the presence of the bright (woman)’. What Rask takes as the abbreviation for -ir is merely the final curve of letter <s>, with an interruption in the pen-stroke or loss of ink between it and the ascender.