Gamlkan Has 56^VII

Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 56’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 123-4.

text and translation

notes and context

[5-8]: Several interpretations of the second helmingr have been offered, none entirely satisfactory. Jón Helgason (1935-6, 261) suggests that at meiri should be emended to at meira, which he takes to be adverbial, amplifying ák biðja þik. He reads the God-kenning as having two determinants, jǫfurr líknar ok fleygs foldar ægis, and translates naadens og den rullende himmels konge ‘king of mercy and of the turbulent heaven’. Friðar (l. 8) is taken to be part of the main cl., and the helmingr is construed þess ák at meira biðja þik friðar sjalfan mér, margríkr jǫfurr líknar ok fleygs foldar ægis ‘therefore I must beg you the more for peace for myself, very powerful king of mercy and of the turbulent heaven’. This edn follows Jón’s interpretation. Kock (NN §2935) objects to this interpretation, claiming that God’s attributes of mercy (líkn) and heaven (fleygr foldar ægir) are too disparate to be governed by the same noun (jǫfurr). He (NN §1212) agrees with Finnur Jónsson that friðr ‘peace’, and líkn should be taken together as the object of biðja ‘to beg, pray’, but assumes that they are asyndetic. The conj. ok (l. 7) is thus freed, and Kock reads it in situ, linking fleygs and foldar. He then interprets ægir as a reference to the sea, and takes the complete God-kenning to be jǫfurr foldar ok fleygs ægis ‘king of the earth and the tumultuous sea’. A third interpretation is that of Sveinbjörn Egilsson, which is also followed by Finnur Jónsson and Kempff. Sveinbjörn (1844, 31 n. 70) concurs with Kock in taking both friðr and líkn as the object of biðja, but chooses to link them with the conj. ok. This separates ok from its syntactic environment and cannot be paralleled in the corpus of skaldic poetry.

readings

• [3] bragar: ‘[...]agar’ B, ‘ḅag[...]’ 399a‑bˣ, ‘(b)agaz’(?) BRydberg, ‘hagar’ BFJ
• [7] fleygs: ‘[...]leýgs’ B

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.

• AM 757 a 4° (B) — 13r/49 - 13r/51

  Tregr emk ljót at láta
  lastaverk til fasta
  — mér †[...]agar† opt fyr augum —
  æligs móðs fyr róða.
  Þess ák mér at meira
  margríkr jǫfurr, líknar,
  †[...]leýgs† ok foldar œgis,
  friðar sjalfan þik biðja.

  Tregr em ek liót at lata lasta verk til fasta mer … agar oppt fyrer augum ęlígs | mods fyrer róða þer…s a ek mer at meíre margrikr io᷎furr liknar …leýgs ok folldar ęgiss fridar | síalfan þik bidía.

  (EB)

  images
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• Lbs 444 4°x (444x)

• JS 399 a-b 4°x (399a-bx)

  Tregr emk ljót at láta
  lastaverk til fasta
  — mér †ḅag[...]† opt fyr augum —
  æligs móðs fyr róða.
  Þess ák mér at meira
  margríkr jǫfurr, líknar,
  fleygs ok foldar œgis,
  friðar sjalfan þik biðja.

editions and texts