Anon (FoGT) 32^III

Það saung og í gröf geinginn
grundu huldr til stundar
enn með iðran sannri
öðlingr til refsingar:
‘hugþekka mun hlakka
hróðrslungin loftunga,
mána valdr hinn mildi,
mín riettvísi þína.’

Öðlingr, huldr grundu til stundar til refsingar og geinginn í gröf, saung það enn með sannri iðran: ‘hróðrslungin loftunga mín mun hlakka hugþekka riettvísi þína, {hinn mildi valdr mána}.’

The king, covered with earth for a time as punishment and gone into the grave, yet sang that with true repentance: ‘my eulogy-encircled tongue of praise will exult your beloved righteousness, {merciful ruler of the moon} [= God].’

Mss: W(117) (FoGT)

Readings: [6] hróðrslungin: ‘hroðr slvng’ W    [7] valdr: vald W

Editions: Skj AII, 164, Skj BII, 181, Skald II, 95; SnE 1848-87, II, 230-3, III, 161, FoGT 1884, 141-2, 282-4, FoGT 2004, 50, 74, 142-3, FoGT 2014, 34-5, 121-2.

Context: The stanza illustrates the rhetorical figure termed euphemismos, which is defined in FoGT as gott vm skiptí stafa í orðinv, sem david settí ‘Exultat’ fyrer ‘exaltat’ ‘a good exchange of letters in the word, as [when] David replaced exaltat [“exalts”] with exultat [“exults”]’.

Notes: [All]: The second helmingr of st. 32, which is in dróttkvætt metre, is a very clever rendition into Icelandic of the Latin text of Ps. 50.16 Et exultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam ‘And my tongue will exult your righteousness’. A version of the quotation from the psalm is given in the Doctrinale (Reichling 1893, 176, ll. 2615-16) as an example of euphemismos. After the stanza, the prose text explains that the verb hlakka ‘cry out, rejoice, exult’ is used here instead of the more common hefja upp ‘raise, exalt’ in order to replace a less prestigious with a more prestigious word. — [1-4]: The sense and syntactic arrangement of the words in the first helmingr have been the subject of some editorial differences. It is assumed here, with Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884, 282) and Longo (FoGT 2004, 142-3 and 210-11), that the first helmingr represents the Biblical King and Psalmist David as a penitent sinner, who died and spent time in the grave as a punishment for his sins before being released at the Last Judgement. The second helmingr is then represented in direct speech as what he sang from the grave in praise of God’s righteousness. For the common medieval representation of David as a type of the penitent sinner, see Gamlkan Has 48-9^VII and Notes to those stanzas. — [1] og geinginn í gröf ‘and gone into the grave’: Og is here construed with geinginn í gröf (so Skj B) rather than more awkwardly with other phrases (ok með sannri iðran, so SnE 1848-87, III, 161; ok enn með sannri iðran FoGT 1884, 282; ok huldr grundu FoGT 2004, 142). — [2] til stundar ‘for a time’: Here understood to mean ‘for a time, temporarily’ (so also SnE 1848-87, FoGT 1884 and FoGT 2004) in the sense that David spent time in the grave until the day of Judgement when, as a penitent, he was released from his punishment. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) takes til stundar with the verb saung ‘sang’ and construes þat sǫng ǫðlingr til stundar, which he translates as Dette sang kongen ivrigt (?) ‘The king sang that eagerly (?)’, but this sense is hard to match (LP: stund glosses this usage as straks ‘straight away’). — [6] hróðrslungin ‘eulogy-encircled’: This emendation of W’s ‘hroðr slvng’ as a f. adj. (p. p.) to agree with loftunga ‘tongue of praise’, was first proposed by Konráð Gíslason (Nj 1875-8, II, 205-9) and has been followed by all subsequent eds. — [7] valdr ‘ruler’: An emendation of W’s ‘valld’ also proposed by Konráð Gíslason (loc. cit.) to provide a m. nom. sg. noun, which functions as the base-word of a kenning for God. — [7] hinn mildi valdr mána ‘merciful ruler of the moon [= God]’: Lit. ‘the merciful ruler of the moon’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. 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.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
6. FoGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
7. FoGT 2004 = Longo, Michele, ed. [2004]. ‘Il Quarto Trattato Grammaticale Islandese: Testo, Traduzione e Commento’. Dottorato di Ricerca in ‘Linguistica Sincronica e Diacronica’ (XV Ciclo). Palermo: Università degli Studi di Palermo, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia.
8. Reichling, Dietrich, ed. 1893. Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei. Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica 12. Berlin: A. Hofmann & Comp. Rpt. 1974. Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series, Studies in the History of Education 11. New York: Burt Franklin.
9. FoGT 2014 = Clunies Ross, Margaret and Jonas Wellendorf, eds. 2014. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
10. Internal references
11. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, The Fourth Grammatical Treatise’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=34> (accessed 30 April 2024)
12. Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 48’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 115.
13. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 18 (Skarpheðinn Njálsson, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1243.