GunnLeif Merl I 61^VIII

‘Glíkt mun gaupu         grams jóð vesa;
vill þat sinni þjóð         sjalfri steypa.
En af þeim sǫkum         þermlask bæði
Íra ok Engla         auðgrar jarðar
Néústría         ok numin tígnum.

‘Jóð grams mun vesa glíkt gaupu; þat vill steypa þjóð sinni sjalfri. En af þeim sǫkum þermlask Néústría auðgrar jarðar bæði Íra ok Engla, ok numin tígnum.

‘The king’s son will resemble a lynx; it will wish to destroy its own people. And for those reasons Neustria will be stripped of the rich land of both the Irish and the English and deprived of honours.

Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)

Readings: [1] gaupu: gaupa Hb    [6] þermlask: þremlask Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 30, Skj BII, 36, Skald II, 23, NN §§104, 3143B, 3258C; Bret 1848-9, II, 60 (Bret st. 129); Hb 1892-6, 280-1; Merl 2012, 174-5.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.105-7; cf. Wright 1988, 105, prophecy 18): Egredietur ex eo linx penetrans omnia, quae ruinae propriae gentis imminebit. Per illam enim utramque insulam amittet Neustria et pristina dignitate spoliabitur ‘From him will emerge a lynx, which will penetrate through everything and threaten to destroy its own people. Because of it Normandy will lose both islands and be stripped of its former honour’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). The lynx appears as a simile rather than allegorically in Merl and the idea that the lynx’s preternaturally acute sight enables it to see through into the viscera of animals, hinted at in DGB, is not carried over. — [1] gaupu ‘a lynx’: Emended in Skj B, followed by subsequent eds, from ms. gaupa (not refreshed), the nom. form. Bret 1848-9 retains gaupa without explanation, but the oblique form is required. — [3] þat ‘it’: Omitted in Skald. — [6] þermlask ‘will be stripped’: Þermlask is normalised from the metathesised ms. form þremlask in Skj B (followed by Skald and Merl 2012) and in this edn. This edn follows Skj B (cf. Skald and Merl 2012) in deleting the pron. hann which appears after þremlask in the ms. — [9] Néústría: Evidently realised as four syllables. See Note on I 56/2. Emended to Neustríe ‘of Neustria’, presumably intended as governing auðgrar jarðar ‘of the rich land’, in Skald: see Note to l. 10; Merl 2012 also translates as gen., but retains the ms. form. — [10] ok numin tígnum ‘and deprived of honours’: Finnur Jónsson reads numinn, referring back to the lynx-like king – og han berøvet sin hæder ‘and he [will be] deprived of his honour’ (Skj B, cf. NN §3258C; Merl 2012) – but the sense and adherence to the Latin are improved if we interpret the ms. form numin as f. nom. sg., agreeing with Neustría, which is the subject of the clause. Kock doubts (NN §104, cf. §3258C) that the names of countries can function as grammatical subjects, but fails to take account of the Latin. Cities and nations, like individual persons, could be thought of as possessing honours (cf. I 30/5, I 59/5).

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
7. 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.
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. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
10. Internal references
11. 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 20 April 2024)