Carolyne Larrington and Peter Robinson (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Sólarljóð 39’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 322-3.
Sól ek sá sanna dagstjörnu
drjúpa dynheimum í;
en heljar grind heyrða ek annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Ek sá sól, sanna dagstjörnu, drjúpa í dynheimum; en annan veg heyrða ek grind heljar þjóta þungliga.
‘I saw the sun, the true day-star, bow down in the noisy world; and in the other direction I heard the gate of Hell roaring weightily.’
This st. is the first of a series of anaphoric sts (39-45), beginning Sól ek sá ‘I saw the sun’. The significance of the sun in these sts is disputed: Falk 1914, 22 interprets it as symbolising Christ; Björn M. Ólsen 1915, 42 sees it as the actual sun, seen with the narrator’s dying eyes. Paasche 1948, 181 argues that the sun is to be interpreted on both naturalistic and symbolic levels, an argument broadly endorsed by Fidjestøl 1979, 46.
Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.
Sól ek sá
sanna dagstjörnu
drjúpa †dimheimuṁ i† ;
en helgrind
†hedi† ek annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Sól ek sá
sanna dagstjörnu
drjúpa †dyrheimum i† ;
en heljar grund
heyrða ek á annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Sól ek sá
samað at stjörnu
drjúpa dynheimum í;
en heljar grind
heyrða ek annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Sól ek sá
sanna dagstjörnu
drjúpa †i dynheimum† ;
en heljar grind
heyrði annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Sól ek sá
sanna dagstjörnu
drjúpa dynheimum í;
en heljar grind
heyrða ek annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Sól ek sá
sanna dagstjörnu
drjúpa dynheimum í;
en heljar grind
heyrða ek annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Sol ek sa | saɴa dagstiaurno | driupa dynheimom i | eɴ heliar grind | heirþak aɴan ueg | þiota þungliga
(TW)
Sól ek sá
sanna dagstjörnu
drúpa dynheimum í;
en heljar grind
heyrða ek á annan veg
þjóta þungliga.
Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XII], G [6]. Sólarljóð 39: AI, 634, BI, 641-2, Skald I, 312; Bugge 1867, 363, Falk 1914, 19, Björn M. Ólsen 1915, 14, Fidjestøl 1979, 65, Njörður Njarðvík 1991, 70-1, Njörður Njarðvík 1993, 45, 117.
Use the buttons at the top of the page to navigate between stanzas in a poem.
The text and translation are given here, with buttons to toggle whether the text is shown in the verse order or prose word order. Clicking on indiviudal words gives dictionary links, variant readings, kennings and notes, where relevant.
This is the text of the edition in a similar format to how the edition appears in the printed volumes.
This view is also used for chapters and other text segments. Not all the headings shown are relevant to such sections.