Note to Anon Krm 10VIII
[9] grét morginskæru ‘wept early that morning’: It is assumed here that grét ‘wept’ is intransitive and morginskæru ‘morning’ is an acc. sg. used adverbially (so Kock NN §2275; cf. Sigv Austv 11/1I Jór rinnr aptanskœru ‘[My] … steed runs … in the twilight’). The main alternative is to understand -skæru not as skæra f. ‘(light of) dawn (or evening)’ but as skœra f. ‘battle’ (see LP: skœra; cf. CVC: skæra, i.e. skœra, and skæra), and to take the cpd as object of grét, hence ‘wept over the morning-battle’ (so, e.g., Rafn 1826, 10, 11, 45, 115 and seemingly Wisén 1886-9, II, 102 and Finnur Jónsson 1893b). This avoids assuming an aðalhending (mær: skæru), which would be unusual in an odd line. Further options are to interpret grét as intransitive, with morginskæru as belonging adverbially with bíta ‘biting’ in l. 5 (so CPB) or to take grét as transitive, ‘bewailed, lamented’, with morginskæru as its object with the sense ‘dawn’ (so Skj B).
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.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
- CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
- Wisén, Theodor, ed. 1886-9. Carmina Norrœnæ: Ex reliquiis vetustioris norrœnæ poësis selecta, recognita, commentariis et glossario instructa. 2 vols. Lund: Ohlsson.
- Finnur Jónsson. 1893b. Carmina Norrœna: Rettet Tekst. Copenhagen: Nielsen & Lydiche.
- Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1826. Krakas Maal eller Kvad om Kong Ragnar Lodbroks Krigsbedrifter og Heltedød efter en gammel Skindbog og flere hidtil ubenyttede Haandskrifter med dansk, latinsk og fransk oversættelse, forskjellige Læsemaader, samt kritiske og philologiske Anmærkninger. Copenhagen: Jens Hostrup Schultz; London: John and Arthur Arch.
- Internal references
- R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Austrfararvísur 11’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 599.