GunnLeif Merl I 22VIII
Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 90 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 22)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 62.
‘Es harmr mikill hǫlðum at segja;
segik sigr hafa snák inn hvíta.
Láð mun leggjask ok lýða fjǫlð;
munu dreyrgar ár ór dǫlum falla.
‘Mikill harmr es at segja hǫlðum; segik inn hvíta snák hafa sigr. Láð mun leggjask ok fjǫlð lýða; dreyrgar ár munu falla ór dǫlum.
‘A great sorrow is to be told to men; I say the white snake has the victory. The land and the multitude of people will be subjugated; blood-stained rivers will fall from the valleys.
Mss: Hb(51r) (Bret)
Readings: [2] at segja: segja Hb
Editions: Skj AII, 25, Skj BII, 28, Skald II, 18; Bret 1848-9, II, 46 (Bret st. 90); Hb 1892-6, 278; Merl 2012, 144.
Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 145.34, 36-7; cf. Wright 1988, 102, prophecy 1): Vae rubeo draconi; nam exterminatio eius festinat … Montes itaque eius ut ualles aequabuntur, et flumina uallium sanguine manabunt ‘Alas for the red dragon, its end is near … Its mountains will be levelled with the valleys, and the rivers in the valleys will flow with blood’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 144). Gunnlaugr’s handling of Montes … aequabuntur is consistent with his tendency to rationalise the allegory. — [2] at segja ‘to be told’: The prep. at is supplied in this edn to clarify the syntax. The inf. segja is passive in function though active in form.
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
- 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.
- Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
- Internal references
- 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 2 May 2024)
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