Þul Women 1^III

Braut es svarri ok sæta;
sveimar rýgr ok feima;
brúðrs í fǫr með fljóði;
fatk drós ok man kjósa.
Þekkik sprund ok sprakka;
sparik við hæl at mæla;
firrumk snót ok svarra;
svífr mér langt frá vífi.

Braut es svarri ok sæta; rýgr ok feima sveimar; brúðrs í fǫr með fljóði; fatk kjósa drós ok man. Þekkik sprund ok sprakka; sparik við hæl at mæla; firrumk snót ok svarra; mér svífr langt frá vífi.

The haughty woman and the grass-widow are away; the mighty woman and the lass are wandering about; the bride has gone travelling with the matron; I did choose the girl and the maid. I catch sight of the dame and lively one; I refrain from talking with the widow; I am shunning snót and the haughty woman; I am drifting far away from the wife.

Mss: A(21r), U(44r) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Braut: brottu U;    sæta: sværa U    [8] langt: lang U

Editions: Skj AI, 652, Skj BI, 657, Skald I, 322; SnE 1848-87, II, 363, 490-1.

Notes: [All]: Each term for ‘woman’ given in this stanza is listed in Þul Kvenna I as well. For specific information concerning these heiti, see Notes there. — [1] braut es svarri ok sæta ‘the haughty woman and the grass-widow are away’: The U variant sværa ‘mother-in-law’ for sæta ‘grass-widow’ is probably not correct, because it transfers the skothending from the initial position in the line (-aut : ‑æt-) to the second stressed syllable (svarri), thus violating the strict order in the distribution of rhyming syllables in the odd lines of this stanza. That may support Konráð Gíslason’s assumption (Nj 1875-89, II, 900) that svarri replaced another designation for ‘haughty woman’, namely, svanni ‘lady’ (thus the original reading of the line could have been Braut es svanni ok sæta). Otherwise it is impossible to explain why the former heiti appears twice in the same stanza (cf. svarri l. 7: snót ok svarra). — [1, 2] es; sveimar ‘are; are wandering about’: Lit. ‘is; is wandering about’. For pl. subjects with sg. verbs, see NS §70. What is peculiar in this stanza (and in the next) is the close proximity between the sg. finite verbs and their pl. subjects.

References

1. Bibliography
2. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
3. Nj 1875-89 = Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson. 1875-89. Njála: Udgivet efter gamle håndskrifter. Íslendingasögur udgivne efter gamle haandskrifter af Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-selskab 4. Copenhagen: Thiele.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
6. Internal references
7. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Kvenna heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 772. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3191> (accessed 26 April 2024)