Cite as: Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 102’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1209.
Njóti aldrs
ok auðsala
konungr ok jarl;
þats kvæðis lok. |
Falli fyrr
fold í ægi
steini studd
en stillis lof. |
Njóti konungr ok jarl aldrs ok auðsala; þats lok kvæðis. Falli fold, studd steini, fyrr í ægi en lof stillis.
May the king and the jarl enjoy life and wealth-halls; that is the end of the poem. May the earth, studded with stone, sink into the sea sooner than the praise of the ruler.
Mss: R(53r) (SnE)
Readings: [7] studd: ‘stvd’ R
Editions: Skj: Snorri Sturluson, 2. Háttatal 102: AII, 77, BII, 88, Skald II, 48, NN §3264; SnE 1848-87, I, 716-17, III, 135, SnE 1879-81, I, 16, 85, II, 34, SnE 1931, 252, SnE 2007, 39; Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, I, 68.
Context: The stanza follows st. 101 directly
without intervening prose. The metre is not named, but it is kviðuháttr ‘poem’s form’. The even lines
correspond to fornyrðislag lines
(here Types A (l. 6), B (ll. 4, 8) and C3 (l. 2)), and the odd lines are
catalectic versions of fornyrðislag
(trisyllabic; Types A1 (ll. 5, 7), A2 (l. 3), with resolution in metrical position
1, and A3 (l. 1)).
Notes: [All]: The name of this metre (kviðuháttr) is given as the heading of RvHbreiðm Hl 3-4, which are composed in the same metre, and the term is also found in TGT (TGT 1884, 63). For a discussion of the metre, see Section 4 of the General Introduction in SkP I and Gade (2005). — [5-8]: ‘Sink into the sea sooner than the praise of the ruler’ i.e. ‘sooner than the praise of the ruler perish’. For similar hyperboles, see e.g. Arn Þorfdr 24II, Eyv Hák 20I, Hfr ErfÓl 27I and KormǪ Lv 18/5-8V (Korm 19). The reference to the stillir ‘ruler’ (l. 8) is ambiguous, because it leaves it up to the audience to decide whether the final words of praise are directed at Hákon or Skúli. — [7] studd ‘studded’: Altered in R to ‘stvdd’ (R*).
