Note to Anon Sól 78VII
[All]: This st. for the first time clarifies the discursive framework of the poem – a father addresses his son – and yet ll. 1-4 are capable of two different interpretations. Arfi (l. 1) may be either the m. noun ‘son, heir’ nom., the subject of direct address, or the m. dat. sg. of arfr ‘inheritance’, object of ráða ‘to possess, have at one’s disposal’ (which takes the dat. case). Skj B and Skald follow the latter line of interpretation, which also requires them to emend faðir to fǫður (gen. sg). Skj B construes Faders arv har jeg ene rådet over og de Solkatlas sönner ‘I alone, and Solkatla’s sons, have had the father’s inheritance at my disposal’. Hjartarhorn (l. 4), presumably in apposition to fǫður arfi (l. 1) should then also be in the dat. case, and Skald emends to hjartarhorni, though Skj B does not. The other possibility, and that adopted here, is that the father addresses his son directly and that ek einn, faðir is to be understood as ‘I alone, the father …’. Ráða (l. 2) is then to be understood as meaning ‘to interpret’ (in this sense it takes the acc. case) with hjartarhorn (l. 4) as object of ek hefi ráðit (l. 2). This sense fits better with the remainder of st. 78 and looks forward to st. 79.