Gamlkan Has 41VII/7 — nauðr ‘it is a necessity’
Kosti hverr við harra
— hætts ella mjǫk — sættask
byrjar láðs — hvat bíðum?
blikvaldr þrimu tjalda.
Opt verðr Ægis leiptra
ein stund viðum grundar
— nauðr erumk ǫll at eyða
andar mein — at seinum.
Hverr blikvaldr tjalda þrimu kosti sættask við harra láðs byrjar; ella [e]s mjǫk hætt; hvat bíðum? Opt verðr ein stund at seinum viðum leiptra grundar Ægis; nauðr erumk at eyða ǫll mein andar.
Let every wielder of the gleam of the tents of battle [(lit. ‘gleam-wielder of the tents of battle’) SHIELDS > SWORD > WARRIOR] try to reconcile himself with the lord of the land of the fair wind [SKY/HEAVEN > = God]; otherwise, there is great danger; what are we waiting for? Often one hour will be too late for the trees of the lightnings of the plain of Ægir <sea-king> [SEA > GOLD > MEN]; it is a necessity for me to blot out all injuries of the spirit.
readings
[7] nauðr: ‘[...]a[...]dr’ B, ‘[...]auðr’ 399a‑bˣ, BRydberg, BFJ
notes
[7] nauðr: B is badly damaged at this point and only ‘…a…dr’ can be read. None of the previous readers of the ms. were able to supply the beginning of the word, though the scribe of the 399a-bˣ transcript read the remainder of the word with confidence as ‘…auðr’. Sveinbjörn Egilsson suggested in a note to Jón Sigurðsson’s copy (444ˣ) that the word might be trauðir m. nom. pl. of trauðr ‘reluctant’, and used the form trauðr in his 1844 edn and in his prose arrangement (preserved in 444ˣ). Kempff and Finnur Jónsson adopted this reconstruction. It is unlikely, however, that the space for the initial letter at the beginning of fol. 13r, l. 21 is sufficient to account for the loss of tr here, and Rydberg (1907, lxxii) and Jón Helgason (1935-6, 259) are agreed that there is space for only one letter before a. Furthermore, as Rydberg (1907, 27 n. 7) notes, in the following l. (fol. 13r, l. 22), the ‘a’ in trauð is abbreviated with the ω-like sign. Rydberg is in no doubt that the traces of the original letter seen by him suggest that nauðr f. ‘need, necessity’ is the correct reading here. He compares the parallel construction in Leið 15/3-4, which reads nauðr er þegnum þýðask þann veg ‘there is a need for men to receive that glory’. Kock adopts this reading (Skald) and it is also adopted here.