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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Stríðk 1III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Stríðkeravísur 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 628.

Anonymous PoemsStríðkeravísur1

text and translation

Þess sitk, þægra hnossa
Þrúðr, ávalt, in prúða,
hverjum leik á hráka
hnugginn Gleipnis tuggu,
at urðhœings jarðar
ýtendr fyr mér nýtir
greipar svells ins gjalla
Gefn stríðkera nefni.

{In prúða Þrúðr þægra hnossa}, sitk ávalt, hnugginn hverjum leik, á {hráka {Gleipnis tuggu}} þess, at {nýtir ýtendr {jarðar {urðhœings}}} nefni {Gefn {ins gjalla svells greipar}} {stríðkera} fyr mér.
 
‘Beautiful Þrúðr <goddess> of delightful ornaments [WOMAN], I live always, deprived of every pleasure, in the spittle of Gleipnir’s <magic fetter’s> mouthful [= Fenrir > = Ván (ván ‘hope’)] of this, that capable givers of the earth of the stone-heap salmon [SERPENT > GOLD > GENEROUS MEN] may name the Gefn <= Freyja> of the ringing ice of the hand [SILVER > WOMAN] a grief-prick [WIDOW] in my presence.

notes and context

See Introduction. The stanza is introduced with the words svá segir í Stríðkeravísum ‘so it says in Stríðkeravísur’.

The first helmingr of this complex stanza has to be understood as a direct address to a woman, in which the speaker claims he is deprived of ‘pleasure’ (leikr lit. ‘sport’), to be understood in the sense of sexual pleasure (cf. Anon (SnE) 2/2 where the noun is used in the same sense). He then expresses the wish that people might declare in his hearing that the woman in whom he is interested is a widow, thus presumably encouraging him in the hope that she might be available to him as a partner (see further Note to l. 8 stríðkera).

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], A. 3. Stríðkeravísur: AI, 590, BI, 591, Skald I, 288, NN §§2196B anm., 2495C, 3246; SnE 1848-87, II, 630, III, 194-5, LaufE 1979, 38, 375.

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