Note to ÞSjár Frag 4III
[3] bifask (3rd pers. sg. pres. indic.) ‘trembles’: As it stands in the mss (normalised byrjask ‘begins’ 742ˣ, 1496ˣ or byrjar ‘begins’ 1116ˣ), the line is unmetrical (heptasyllabic), and all previous eds delete en ‘and, but’. However, this conj. cannot be omitted without creating a line that is otherwise unattested in dróttkvætt poetry. One can only arrive at a metrically correct construction by replacing the long-stemmed disyllabic verb byrjask (or byrjar) ‘begins’ with a short-stemmed verb that is neutralised in the first dip. Bifask ‘trembles’ may have been misread as byrjask, i.e. <yr> for <if> with insular <f>. The clause rǫmm raust bifask ‘the strong voice trembles’ is taken here to refer to the voice of Rán, who is described elsewhere as ‘the loud-voiced one’ (háraust, SnSt Ht 19/6), while her daughters, the waves, are called raustljótar ‘ugly-voiced’ (RvHbreiðm Hl 54/6). Alternatively, if normalised rǫst ‘current’ is adopted, the clause reads ‘the strong current trembles’, which is also possible. The connection between rǫst ‘current’ and bifask ‘trembles’ is also made in other skaldic stanzas, e.g. vestr bifask rengr í rǫstum ‘in the west, ship-frames tremble in the currents’ (Kali Lv 1/3II).
References
- Internal references
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Kali Sæbjarnarson, Lausavísa 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 393-4.
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill 54’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1061.
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 19’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1124.