Note to Anon Líkn 41^VII

[5-8]: The helmingr is problematic and cannot be resolved without emendation. This edn follows Rydberg’s emendation of (l. 8), and Skj B’s Æxtr (l. 5). The various approaches can be characterised as follows: Sveinbjörn Egilsson 1844, 48 attempts to salvage the ms. readings, normalising only adv. valt to n. vald ‘power’. His construction, found in LP (1860): æxti and berr, is æxt vald ferr til fegri vaxtar, en vinnim hugðu ór skýrða hverja dýrð – þinn hreinn vegr er berr, or to translate his Lat. ‘The distinguished power (of the Cross) rises into growths too beautiful for us to be able in thought to explicate its every excellent virtue – your clear glory is manifest’. But this is awkward, loosely translated, and depends on inexact meanings, e.g. berr (manifesta ‘manifest’). Rydberg 1907, 52 follows this construction but emends ór (l. 8) to of. He understands hugðu (dat.) (l. 7) simply as ‘in [our] thought’, as does this edn. Skj B emends (as here) æxt to æxtr and (like Rydberg) ór to of, construing hugðu (l. 7) as p.p. of hyggja (LP: hugðu fegri ‘fairer than is thought’); Finnur Jónsson then arranges the subordinate clause as er berr hverja dýrð hugðu fegri en of vinnim skyrða ‘which bears each glory, more beautiful than can be thought (and more beautiful) than we can express’. NN §1398 (cf. Skald), accepting æxtr for æxt, emends hugðu to hugða, paralleling skýrða (l. 8), and ór (Skj B of) to ok (l. 8); Kock then translates ‘Your honour, the pure, which possesses every beauty, (is) fairer than we can think or express’. But this is again rather free and requires three emendations.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. LP (1860) = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1860. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis. Copenhagen: Societas Regia antiquariorum septentrionalium.
7. Rydberg, Hugo, ed. 1907. ‘Die geistlichen Drápur und Dróttkvættfragmente des Cod. AM 757 4to.’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Lund. Copenhagen: Møller.
8. Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1844. Fjøgur gømul kvæði. Boðsrit til að hlusta á þá opinberu yfirheyrslu í Bessastaða Skóla þann 22-29 mai 1844. Viðeyar Klaustri: prentuð af Helga Helgasyni, á kostnað Bessastaða Skóla. Bessastaðir: Helgi Helgason.