Note to Anon 732b 1III
[3] hryggbrot ‘rejection’: Lit. ‘back-breaking’. This is an unusual medieval occurrence of an expression well known in Modern Icelandic, referring to the rejection of a lover or suitor (Finnur Jónsson 1886a, 192; Mörður Árnason 2010: hryggbrot; cf. CVC: hryggbrotinn ‘broken-backed’). Here the expression sustains the polysemy of the stanza by simultaneously signifying the figurative hurt inflicted on the suitor, and the toil of the seaman, bent in physical activity (on which see further Note to l. 4 below). Cf. l. 5, which associates the outcomes of the man’s rejection and his nocturnal exertions: var sviftr krafti og konu ‘[He] was deprived of strength and the woman’.
References
- Bibliography
- CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
- Finnur Jónsson. 1886a. ‘Lønskrift og lejlighedsoptegnelser fra et par islandske håndskrifter’. In Kålund et al. 1884-91, 185-94.
- Mörður Árnason, ed. 2010. Íslensk orðabók. 5th rev. edn. Reykjavík: Forlágið.