Anon Hsv 35VII
Tarrin Wills and Stefanie Gropper (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Hugsvinnsmál 35’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 382.
Af annars dauða væntu aldrigi,
at þér gagn geriz;
aldrlagi sínu ræðr engi maðr;
nær stendr hölðum hel.
Væntu aldrigi, at þér gagn geriz af annars dauða; engi maðr ræðr aldrlagi sínu; hel stendr nær hölðum.
Never hope that you may profit from another’s death; nobody controls his own life’s end; death is close to men.
Mss: 1199ˣ(72v), 723aˣ(79), 696XV(1v), 401ˣ(1r), 624(142)
Readings: [2] væntu: væntu þér 696XV, glez þú 624 [3] þér: ‘[...]’ 696XV; gagn: ‘[...]’ 696XV, 401ˣ; geriz: ‘[...]’ 696XV, geri 624 [4] aldrlagi: ‘[...]gí’ 696XV [5] ræðr: kvíði 401ˣ [6] nær: því nær 401ˣ, þvíat nær 624; hölðum hel: ‘haulld[...]m[...]’ 401ˣ, ‘holl hol’ 624
Editions: Skj AII, 175-6, Skj BII, 191, Skald II, 100; Hallgrímur Scheving 1831, 13, Gering 1907, 10, Tuvestrand 1977, 90, Hermann Pálsson 1985, 49.
Notes: [All]: Lat. parallel: (Dist. I, 19) Cum dubia et fragilis nobis sit vita tributa, / in mortem alterius spem tu tibi ponere noli ‘Since the life given to us is doubtful and fragile, do not place your hope in the death of another’. — [6] hölðum hel ‘to men ... death’: The reading in 624 (‘nær stendr holl hol’) might indicate that the scribe of that ms. no longer understood the allusion to the role of Hel as the abode of the dead in Norse mythology or did not expect an allusion to pre-Christian mythology in a Christian poem.
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Tuvestrand, Birgitta, ed. 1977. Hugsvinnsmál: Handskrifter och kritisk text. Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap A:29. Lund: Blom.
- Hermann Pálsson, ed. 1985a. Áhrif Hugsvinnsmála á aðrar fornbókmenntir. Studia Islandica/Íslensk Fræði 43. Reykjavík: Menningarsjóður.
- Gering, Hugo, ed. 1907. Hugsvinnsmál. Eine altisländische Übersetzung der Disticha Catonis. Kiel: Lipsius & Tischer.
- Hallgrímur Scheving, ed. 1831. Hugsvinnsmál, ásamt þeirra látinska frumriti. Skóla hátið. Viðeyar Klaustri: prentuð af Helga Helgasyni, á kostnað Bessastaða Skóla.
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