Sæk þú Snarvendil; sigr mun honum fylgja,
hoskr, ef þú, hilmir, vilt þér í hendi bera.
Koss vil ek af þér klénan þiggja;
þá muntu mímung mér ór hendi fá.
Sæk þú Snarvendil; sigr mun fylgja honum, ef þú, hoskr hilmir, vilt bera í hendi þér. Ek vil þiggja klénan koss af þér; þá muntu fá mímung ór hendi mér.
Take Snarvendill; victory will follow it, if you, wise prince, want to carry it in your hand. I want to get a nice kiss from you; then you will get the sword from my hand.
[3] hoskr ‘wise’: All mss use the younger form of the adj. horskr ‘wise’ with assimilation of <rs> before the consonant combination <ss> and consequent shortening to <s> before the consonant <k> (cf. ANG §272.3). Kock (NN §3296A) interprets the adj. as ‘daring, bold, valiant’ rather than as ‘wise’, the meaning fairly universally accepted elsewhere, and considers the syntax of this phrase with the adj. as predicative in a conditional clause, ‘if you are bold, prince …’. This view of the meaning and structure seems unnecessarily complex and perhaps misleading.