Note to Anon Krm 27^VIII

[2] líðr harðla at ævi ‘my life is drawing very much to its end’: Lit. ‘It’s drawing very much to [the end of my] life’; cf. Fritzner: líða (líða at 2). Among previous eds, Rafn (1826), Pfeiffer (1860) and Valdimar Ásmundarson (Krm 1891) retain the mss’ arfi, dat. sg. of arfr ‘inheritance, estate (of one deceased)’, as the final word in the line, evidently taking this as a metonymic expression for ‘death’ (so Rafn 1826, 149), and understanding the accompanying verb and prep. (líðr… at) as forming with it an impersonal construction meaning lit. ‘it passes towards death’, i.e. ‘[my] death is approaching’. The emended reading ævi ‘life’ has been adopted by all other eds, including the present, and is based upon a marginal alternative reading to R702ˣ in the hand of Magnús Ólafsson (see Skj AI, 648). Ævi is also in the dat. here and participates in an impersonal construction with the verb líða ‘pass’, this time with the meaning ‘life is failing’. The intensive adv. harðla ‘greatly, very much’ ensures that the line does not convey too great a sense of life drawing peacefully to a close, which would be inappropriate in the present context.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj A = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15a. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. A: Tekst efter håndskrifterne. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1967. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Pfeiffer, Friedrich. 1860. Altnordisches Lesebuch. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel.
4. Krm 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 225-8) of Krm as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
5. 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.