[4] borit … af borði ‘taken … from the table’: Skj B and Skald ‘improve’ this line metrically and alliteratively by emending to af borði þegit ‘received [titbits] from the table’, though no ms. has this reading. Mss 343a and 471 have af/frá porti ‘from the gate’ instead of ‘from the table’, and this reading gives single rather than double alliteration, so could be considered a lectio difficilior. The noun port ‘gate, door’ is a loan into Old Norse from Latin via Old English (AEW: port 1), the earliest citation for which is c. 1280 (ONP: port).
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
- ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.