GunnLeif Merl II 56^VIII

‘Mun it hvíta silfr         hǫlðum granda,
ok gull gera         gumna blinda.
Himni hafna         en á hauðr séa;
svíkr ofdrykkja         ýta mengi.

‘It hvíta silfr mun granda hǫlðum, ok gull gera gumna blinda. Hafna himni en séa á hauðr; ofdrykkja svíkr mengi ýta.

‘The white silver will harm men, and gold make men blind. They will forsake heaven and look on the earth; excessive drinking will undo a multitude of men.

Mss: Hb(50v) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 20, Skj BII, 21, Skald II, 13; Bret 1848-9, II, 35 (Bret st. 56); Hb 1892-6, 276; Merl 2012, 118.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 159.285-; cf. Wright 1988, 114, prophecy 71): Fulgor auri oculos intuentium excaecabit. Candebit argentum in circuitu et diuersa torcularia uexabit. Imposito uino, inebriabuntur mortales postpositoque caelo in terram respicient ‘The glint of gold will blind the eyes of those who behold it. Silver will gleam as it passes round and trouble various wine-presses. When the wine has been served, mortals befuddled with drink will neglect the heavens and gaze at the ground’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 158). From this point Geoffrey draws upon the dire cosmological prodigies and the astrologer’s prophecies in Lucan’s Pharsalia I 522-695 (Tatlock 1950, 405-6, citing Rydberg 1881). Whereas Geoffrey constructs a progression from the circulation of the silver cup to the drunkenness of the company and their neglect of the heavens in favour of earthly things, Gunnlaugr appears to treat drunkenness as a separate issue, obscuring its relation to the silver of the cup: for a later instance of invective against silver cf. Nik (Unger 1877 II, 101): silfrpenningar blinduðu þin augu steypandi þik fram i þvilika glæpsku ‘silver pennies blinded your eyes, plunging you into such sin [i.e. avarice]’. — [6] en séa á hauðr ‘and look on the earth’: Meaning that people will concentrate on earthly things at the expense of the spiritual dimension to life.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Unger, C. R., ed. 1877. Heilagra manna søgur. Fortællinger og legender om hellige mænd og kvinder. 2 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Bentzen.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
6. 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.
7. Tatlock, J. S. P. 1950. The Legendary History of Britain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
8. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
9. Rydberg, Viktor. 1881. ‘Astrologien och Merlin’. NT 4, 377-409; 447-80.
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 4 May 2024)