Anon Mhkv 26III/8 — gelti ‘against a hog’
Þrýtra þann, er verr hefr, valt;
verða kann á ýmsa halt;
misjafnir ’ró blinds manns bitar;
bǫlit kǫllum vér ilt til litar.
Eik hefr þat, er af ǫðrum skefr;
ekki mart er slœgra en refr;
jafnan verðr, at áflóð stakar;
auðfengnar ’ró gelti sakar.
Þrýtra þann valt, er hefr verr; kann verða halt á ýmsa: misjafnir ’ró bitar blinds manns; vér kǫllum bǫlit ilt til litar. Eik hefr þat, er skefr af ǫðrum; ekki mart er slœgra en refr; jafnan verðr, at áflóð stakar; auðfengnar ’ró sakar gelti.
He who has the worse case never withdraws; first one, then another, gets the short stick; unequal are the mouthfuls of a blind man; we declare grief bad for the complexion. An oak has what is scraped from others; not much is slyer than a fox; it always happens that a torrent causes upheavals; easily brought are charges against a hog.
readings
[8] gelti: ‘gelti’ or ‘gesti’ R, ‘gelti’ RFJ, ‘gellti’ RSkj, ‘gelti’ RJS
notes
[8] gelti (dat. sg.) ‘a hog’: The final words of the stanza, ‘ero gesti [or ‘gelti’] sakar’, are written in the right margin of the ms. Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir reads gesti (gestr ‘guest’); the two earlier transcripts (RFJ and RJS), gelti. The scribe of R most often spells gǫltr with two l’s (‘golltr’) but twice (fol. 28r, l. 7 and fol. 33r, l. 16) with one. The idiom is at fá e-m sǫk/sakar ‘to find cause against sby’. The present edn has opted for gǫltr (dat. sg. gelti), because the dat. sg. of gestr, a m. i-stem, would be gest (and not gesti). The underlying wit is that if you want to slaughter your household pigs, the animal whose teeth most closely resembles your own, you can avoid a guilt-trip by convincing yourself that they had it coming. Cf. the adage cited by Finnur Jónsson (1914, 92) from Guðmundur Jónsson’s 1830 proverb collection: feitr gǫltr fær vel sǫk ‘a fat pig provides a good case (for killing)’. (But this citation may not be independent of Mhkv.)