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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Ólhv Frag 3III

Tarrin Wills (ed.) 2017, ‘Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, Fragments 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 304.

Óláfr hvítaskáld ÞórðarsonFragments
234

text and translation

Hermenn gátum hinnig
hugstinnan gram vinna.

Gátum hugstinnan gram vinna hermenn hinnig.
 
‘We [I] have found out that the single-minded lord defeated warriors there.

notes and context

Cited as an example of amphibolia (‘amphibologia’) or ambiguity of diction (see Notes below).

The metre is dunhent ‘echoing-rhymed’ (cf. SnSt Ht 24). — The corresponding example in Donatus (Keil 1855-80, IV, 395) is audio secutorem retiarium superasse ‘I hear the secutor defeated the retiarius’ (secutor and retiarius are types of gladiator). Finnur Jónsson (TGT 1927, 59 n.) speculates on whether the couplet was composed by Óláfr, and the similarities between the two examples indicate strongly that the Old Norse was modelled on the Latin. — [1]: The line is unmetrical, because metrical position 3 is filled by a long rather than by a short syllable.

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], C. Vers om ubestemmelige personer og begivenheder 17: AI, 599, BI, 599, Skald I, 292; NN §2551; SnE 1818, 319, SnE 1848, 188, SnE 1848-87, II, 130-1, 414, TGT 1884, 20, 84, 197, TGT 1927, 59, 100.

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