Anon Hsv 137^VII

Hjarðir sæfa        þarf eigi til hylli guðs;
        beit þú yxn fyrir arðr;
reykelsis ilm,        þann er kemr af réttum siðum,
        vill hann fyrir tafn taka.

Þarf eigi sæfa hjarðir til hylli guðs; beit þú yxn fyrir arðr; hann vill taka fyrir tafn reykelsis ilm, þann er kemr af réttum siðum.

It is not necessary to kill herds for the honour of God; harness oxen to a plough; He will accept in place of sacrifice the fragrance of incense which comes from correct religious observances.

Mss: 1199ˣ(75r), 720a IV(2v), 723aˣ(83), 624(147)

Readings: [2] þarf: skaltu 624;    hylli: so 720a IV, 723aˣ, 624, hylla 1199ˣ    [3] beit: bættu 624;    þú: þín 720a IV, 624, því 723aˣ    [4, 5] reykelsis ilm þann: þann reykelsis ilm 723aˣ    [5] er: sem 723aˣ    [6] vill: so 723aˣ, þat 1199ˣ, 720a IV, 624;    tafn: takn 624

Editions: Skj AII, 195, Skj BII, 208-9, Skald II, 109; Hallgrímur Scheving 1831, 32, Gering 1907, 37, Tuvestrand 1977, 146, Hermann Pálsson 1985, 123.

Notes: [All]: Lat. parallel: (Dist. IV, 38) Ture deum placa, vitulum sine crescrat aratro: / ne credas gaudere deum, cum caede litatur ‘Please God with incense, that the calf may grow without the plough; do not think to please God when sacrifice is made to him by killing’. The same idea is expressed in Hsv 119, possibly deriving from Pss 49 and 50. — [3] beit ‘harness, bite’: There is a play here on the senses of beita: the expression beita fyrir ‘to harness (an animal) to (a vehicle, plough, etc.)’; and the sense of the same verb, ‘cause to bite, hunt’, which can relate to the killing of animals for sacrifice mentioned in the first cl. — [6] vill ‘will’: The reading þat at the start of this l. in most mss does not seem to work grammatically, as þat n. cannot agree with ilm m. in l. 4.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. Tuvestrand, Birgitta, ed. 1977. Hugsvinnsmál: Handskrifter och kritisk text. Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap A:29. Lund: Blom.
4. Hermann Pálsson, ed. 1985a. Áhrif Hugsvinnsmála á aðrar fornbókmenntir. Studia Islandica/Íslensk Fræði 43. Reykjavík: Menningarsjóður.
5. Gering, Hugo, ed. 1907. Hugsvinnsmál. Eine altisländische Übersetzung der Disticha Catonis. Kiel: Lipsius & Tischer.
6. Hallgrímur Scheving, ed. 1831. Hugsvinnsmál, ásamt þeirra látinska frumriti. Skóla hátið. Viðeyar Klaustri: prentuð af Helga Helgasyni, á kostnað Bessastaða Skóla.
7. Internal references
8. Tarrin Wills and Stefanie Gropper (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Hugsvinnsmál 119’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 431.