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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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BjRagn Lv 2VIII (Ragn 20)

Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 20 (Bjǫrn Ragnarsson, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 665.

Bjǫrn RagnarssonLausavísur
123

text and translation

Duga mun hugr ok hjarta
í hugsnöru brjósti,
þó at miðr um þat mæli,
manni innan rifja.
Eigi er oss í augum
ormr né fránir snákar;
bræðr gæddu mik mínir;
man ek stjúpsonu þína.

Hugr mun duga manni ok hjarta innan rifja í hugsnöru brjósti, þó at mæli miðr um þat. Ormr er oss eigi í augum né fránir snákar; bræðr mínir gæddu mik; ek man stjúpsonu þína.
 
‘Courage will serve a man well, as will a heart within the ribs in a courage-swift breast, even though he may speak rather little about it. There is no snake in our eyes, nor glittering serpents; my brothers enriched me; I remember your stepsons.

notes and context

Bjǫrn járnsíða implies that reticence need not indicate lack of courage and that he and his brothers other than Sigurðr, while lacking the latter’s snake-like mark in the eye, can nevertheless match his resolve. Referring to his mother’s stepsons as his brothers, he makes it clear that their memory means much to him.

Stanza 19, spoken by Sigurðr, the son born to Áslaug while her other sons were absent at Hvítabær, finally confirms his elder brothers in their resolve to undertake the revenge mission to Sweden, an idea which they, with Ívarr as their spokesman, had initially resisted (Ragn 1906-8, 143-4). Bjǫrn, the first of the three elder brothers to speak after Sigurðr, here justifies his position with a gnomic exposition of heroic doctrine in ll. 1-4, and may even be implying, with his reference to the snake-like quality of Sigurðr’s eyes in ll. 5-6, that while his own eyes and those of the other two brothers do not share that quality, he and they are no lesser heroes than Sigurðr’s namesake, their grandfather Sigurðr Fáfnisbani; on the motif of glittering eyes, see Ragn 8, Notes to [All] and ll. 5-8 (a) above. — [1]: The sg. mun ‘will’ is here doing service for two conjoined subjects, hugr ‘courage’ and hjarta ‘heart’, agreeing in number with the subject closer to it (Barnes 2008, 257-8; cf. Faarlund 2004, 201-2).

readings

sources

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.

editions and texts

Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], E. 2. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Ragnarssaga loðbrókar V 10: AII, 236-7, BII, 256, Skald II, 133; FSN 1, 267-8 (Ragn ch.9), Ragn 1891, 200 (ch. 9), Hb 1892-6, 461 (RagnSon ch. 2), Ragn 1906-8, 145, 183, 209 (ch. 10), Ragn 1944, 74-5 (ch. 10), FSGJ 1, 255 (Ragn ch. 10), Ragn 1985, 128 (ch. 10), Ragn 2003, 40 (ch. 10), CPB II, 349.

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