Note to Eil Þdr 10III
[5] stríðan stáli ‘harsh against the weapon’: There are two possible interpretations. (a) ‘Harsh against/to the weapon’. This would mean that the river is harsh against the weapons that Þórr and Þjálfi are using, i.e. their spears or possibly the Gríðarvǫlr ‘staff of Gríðr’ which is mentioned in l. 4 (cf. Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 383; Reichardt 1948, 359). (b) ‘Harsh by the weapon’. This could be the third reference (the first two are in sts 6 and 9, respectively) to the dangerous aspects of the river of swords. Stáli must be an instr. dat. here. (c) Kiil (1956, 128) places stáli in the main clause in an instrumental sense, interpreting it as ‘vulva’ in light of hjalt in st. 6 (Kiil 1956, 109).
References
- Bibliography
- Finnur Jónsson. 1900b. ‘Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goðrúnarsonar’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1900, 369-410.
- Kiil, Vilhelm. 1956. ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa’. ANF 71, 89-167.
- Reichardt, Konstantin. 1948. ‘Die Thórsdrápa des Eilífr Goðrúnarson: Textinterpretation’. PMLA 63, 329-91.