GunnLeif Merl II 18^VIII

‘Borg mun falla,         — veitk bana þjóðum —
þvíat hon eiðrofa         áðr of gerðisk.
Munu griðbítar         gǫrla drepnir;
geldr Vintóna         vándra manna.

‘Borg mun falla, þvíat hon áðr of gerðisk eiðrofa; veitk bana þjóðum. Griðbítar munu gǫrla drepnir; Vintóna geldr vándra manna.

‘The city will fall, because it had previously perjured itself; I know of death for the people. The breakers of the truce will [be] comprehensively put to death; Winchester will pay for the wicked men.

Mss: Hb(49v) (Bret)

Readings: [2] bana: bana corrected from ‘kana’ Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 13, Skj BII, 14, Skald II, 8; Bret 1848-9, II, 20-1 (Bret st. 18); Hb 1892-6, 273; Merl 2012, 84.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 153.168-9; cf. Wright 1988, 108, prophecy 35): ‘“festinat namque dies qua ciues ob scelera periurii peribunt’” ‘“The day is at hand when your citizens will perish because of their crimes of betrayal”’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 152). This concludes the speech from the Forest of Dean in DGB. In Merl motifs from prophecies 35 and 36 are intermixed here and in II 19; it is not clear where the Forest’s speech is regarded as ending, but since Gunnlaugr’s use of 2nd pers. sg. forms is confined to II 16 the placement of quotation marks in this edn follows Skald and Merl 2012, which treat only II 16 as direct speech. Bret 1848-9 and Skj B do not use quotation marks in this passage. — [2] veitk ‘I know’: Gunnlaugr’s addition. — [7-8]: The verb gjalda with gen. denotes the cause for which payment is made or suffering incurred (CVC: gjalda 2; Fritzner: gjalda 6). The English idiom ‘pay for’ covers both of these senses. — [7] Vintóna ‘Winchester’: This is the reading of the ms. (not refreshed). It would be tempting to emend to Vintónía, by analogy with II 5/2 and forms in Geoffrey’s text, as is done in Merl 2012, but such a form would produce an unmetrical line and there are parallels elsewhere for Gunnlaugr’s use of variant forms, e.g. Kónan (I 64/1) vs. Kónánus (gen.) (I 72/2).

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
6. Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
7. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
8. Reeve, Michael D., and Neil Wright. 2007. Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain. An Edition and Translation of De gestis Britonum [Historia regum Britanniae]. Woodbridge: Boydell.
9. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
10. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
11. Internal references
12. 2017, ‘ Unattributed, Breta saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 38. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=125> (accessed 26 April 2024)