Vakik, þars vel leizk ekka
(víðis) áðr ok síðan
(greppr hlýðir þá góðu
gallópnis vel spjalli).
Vakik, þars leizk ekka vel áðr ok síðan; þá hlýðir greppr vel góðu spjalli víðis gallópnis.
I wake up where sorrow thrived earlier and afterwards; then the poet listens well to the good tale of the ocean of the eagle [BLOOD].
[1] vel leizk (‘vel læiz’): so A, ‘velleiz’ R, ‘vell eiz’ Tˣ, ‘vellis’ U, ‘vel le᷎zt’ B, ‘vel hellz’ C
[1] þars leizk ekka vel ‘where sorrow thrived’: Lit. ‘where it seemed good to sorrow’; leizk is 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic. of lítask ‘look, seem, appear’ with ekka ‘sorrow’ as the dat. object in an impersonal construction. The last three words in l. 1 are corrupt in several mss. Skj B follows C but emends ms. ‘hellz’ to heltk and vel ‘well’ to val ‘falcon’, giving þats heltk val víðis gallópnis vel ‘that I fed the falcon of the sea of the eagle [BLOOD > RAVEN/EAGLE] well’. Kock suggests Vakðak velleiðs ekka ‘I woke sorrow of the gold-isthmus [SHIELD > BATTLE]’, but the shield-kenning is not convincing.