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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon (SnE) 18III

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from Snorra Edda 18’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 530.

Anonymous LausavísurStanzas from Snorra Edda
1718

introduction

This stanza (Anon (SnE) 18) is transmitted only in ms. U of Skm (SnE). It is written on fol. 44r at the very end of Skm, following Þul Woman 1-2 without intervening prose.

text and translation

Stendr, þats stórum grandar,
sterkviðri mér Herkju
í hneggverǫld; hyggju
hefk stríð borit víða.
Þar kømr enn, ef unna
ítr vildi Bil skaldi,
at blíðr of grœr Gríðar
glaumvindr í sal þindar.

{Sterkviðri Herkju}, þats grandar stórum, stendr í {hneggverǫld} mér; hefk borit stríð hyggju víða. Þar kømr enn, ef ítr Bil vildi unna skaldi, at {blíðr glaumvindr Gríðar} of grœr í {sal þindar}.
 
‘A strong storm of Herkja <troll-woman> [THOUGHT], which hurts greatly, resides in my heart-world [BREAST]; I have carried my grief of mind far and wide. Yet it will happen, if the precious Bil <goddess> would love the skald, that a sweet pleasure-wind of Gríðr <giantess> [THOUGHT] will grow in my hall of the diaphragm [BREAST].

notes and context

[5-8]: There are several problems in this helmingr, and different emendations have been suggested. — [7]: As it stands in the ms., this line contains five rather than six metrical positions, and a syllable is missing after the adj. blíðr ‘sweet’. The missing syllable must have been unstressed and must have belonged syntactically either to that adj. or to the following verb grœr ‘will grow’ (see Gade 1995a, 47-9). There are three possible emendations that would obviate the metrical deficiency. First of all, the adj. blíðr (m. nom. sg.), which qualifies glaumvindr ‘pleasure-wind’ (l. 8), could have been desyllabified (blíður), but that would presuppose that the stanza is late (C14th), and there are no other metrical or linguistic irregularities that would suggest such a late date. Second, emendation of blíðr to blíðum (m. dat. sg.) qualifying sal (m. dat. sg.) ‘hall’ would also furnish the missing syllable. Third (and adopted here), the expletive particle of could have dropped out in the ms. transmission. That emendation was first proposed by Konráð Gíslason (Nj 1875-89, II, 75-6) and adopted in Skj B. Kock (Skald; NN §2127) provides the pron. mér ‘for me’, but that emendation is unmetrical.

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 36: AI, 601, BI, 601, Skald I, 293, NN §§1209, 1910, 2127, 2991B; SnE 1848-87, II, 363, III, 164-5.

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