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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Sól 40VII

Carolyne Larrington and Peter Robinson (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Sólarljóð 40’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 323.

Anonymous PoemsSólarljóð
394041

text and translation

Sól ek sá        setta dreyrstöfum;
        mjök var ek þá ór heimi hallr;
máttug hon leiz        á marga vegu
        frá því, sem fyrri var.

Ek sá sól, setta dreyrstöfum; ek var þá mjök hallr ór heimi; hon leiz máttug á marga vegu frá því, sem var fyrri.
 
‘I saw the sun, set with bloody staves; I was then forcefully tilting out of this world; it appeared mighty in many ways compared with how it was before.

notes and context

[4-6]: There are three possible readings of these ll., depending on which of three verbs (leiz, lézk, leysti) is chosen in l. 4. These are: a) máttug hon leiz á marga vegu frá því sem var fyrri ‘mighty it [the sun] appeared in many ways compared with how it was before’; b) máttug hon lézk á marga vegu vegu frá því sem var fyrri ‘mighty it called itself in many ways compared with how it was before’; c) máttug leysti margan / marga frá því sem var fyrri ‘the mighty one released many a person (or ‘many men’) from that which was before’. Although reading b) is found in 166bˣ, in the unnormalised form ‘liest’, this is its only occurrence, and the sun does not speak elsewhere in the sól ek sá-sts. The preferred reading a) appears in 1441ˣ and 2797ˣ, and a number of other mss. Reading c) requires the sun to be personified (which it is not in other sól ek sá-sts), meaning ‘[she] released many a man (or ‘many men’)’, presumably from earthly life. This creates metrical problems: l. 5 then lacks a second lift. The sentiment is comparable with Hsv 80.

readings

sources

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.

editions and texts

Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XII], G [6]. Sólarljóð 40: AI, 634, BI, 642, 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, 46, 118.

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