Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

Gamlkan Has 47VII/1 — ýta ‘of men’

Lítk optliga ýta
ólíkan mik fíkjum
— aukumsk sôr í slíku
sótt — ástvinum dróttins.
Þeir bundusk vel vándra
verka ógnar sterkir,
brigða skjótt ok bœttu
bógsvells metendr, ella.

Lítk mik optliga fíkjum ólíkan ástvinum dróttins ýta; sôr sótt aukumsk í slíku. Þeir metendr bógsvells, sterkir ógnar, bundusk vel vándra verka ok bœttu ella brigða skjótt.

I see myself often [as] terribly unlike the dear friends of the lord of men [= God > SAINTS]; bitter distress increases for me because of this. Those valuers of arm’s ice [SILVER > MEN], strong in battle, kept themselves well away from evil deeds, or else made amends extremely quickly.

notes

[1, 4] ástvinum dróttins ýta ‘dear friends of the lord of men [= God > SAINTS]’: Ástvinr ‘dear friend’ (lit. ‘love-friend’) is a popular designation of saints and Apostles in Christian poetry after Gamli and, apart from one appearance in Egill St 7/4V, is found only in poetry dating from the C12th or later (LP: ástvinr). Arngrímr Brandsson’s drápa on Guðmundr Árason twice characterises the bishop as ástvinr ýta ‘dear friend of men’ (Arngr Gd 18/1, 50/7IV).

kennings

grammar

Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close

Word in text

This view shows information about an instance of a word in a text.