Cite as: Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 31 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 18)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 583.
Upp mun ek nú rísa ok ganga haugi af,
alls mér Böðmóðr býðr.
Bróðir minn, |
þótt sæti brautu nær,
mundi eigi betr um boðit. |
Ek mun nú rísa upp ok ganga af haugi, alls Böðmóðr býðr mér. Bróðir minn, þótt sæti nær brautu, mundi eigi betr um boðit.
I will now rise up and leave the mound since Bǫðmóðr invites me. My brother, even if he lived near the road, would not have invited me better.
Mss: 343a(57v), 471(55r-v) (Ket)
Readings: [4] Bróðir: bróður 471 [5] brautu: ‘breite’ 471
Editions: Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], E. 8. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Ketill hœngs saga VI 4: AII, 285, BII, 306, Skald II, 162, NN §§1479, 2391, FF §43; FSN 2, 135, FSGJ 2, 176, Anderson 1990, 57, 104-5; Edd. Min. 83.
Context: This stanza follows straight on from the previous one and is introduced by the words: Ketill kvað vísu ‘Ketill spoke a stanza’.
Notes: [4-6] Bróðir minn, þótt sæti nær brautu, mundi eigi betr um boðit ‘My brother, even if he lived near the road, would not have invited me better’: ‘Lived’, lit. ‘sat’ (sæti). The phrasing is reminiscent of those in warnings in Hávm 89/1-2, Sigrdr 26/2-3 and 27/4-5. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) unnecessarily emends l. 6 to: myndit betr hafa boðit ‘he would not have invited me better’; cf. NN §2391. Finnur Jónsson translates 31/4-6 as: min broder vilde ikke have budt bedre selv om han havde bot ved vejen ‘my brother would not have invited me better, even if he lived by the road’ (Skj B). Kock (NN §1479) argues that the emphasis should rather lie on the brother, viz. ‘even if it was my brother who lived near the road’ and considers the phrase bróðir minn forms a syntactical unit with the subordinate clause þótt sæti brautu nær. — [6] mundi eigi betr um boðit ‘would not have invited me better’: The construction mundi ... boðit is elliptical, since the inf. hafa is omitted (on this phenomenon see Gering 1903: mono, pp. 695-6; Nygaard 1878, 266).
