Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Kolbeinn Tumason, Lausavísa 7’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 270.
Myndi mér fyr stundu
mikit orðalag þikkja
of elgrenni unnar
eyrum slíkt at heyra.
Myndi þikkja mér fyr stundu mikit orðalag at heyra eyrum slíkt of {{unnar elg}renni}.
‘It would have seemed to me a while ago a significant expression if I had heard with my own ears such a thing about the impeller of the elk of the wave [(lit. ‘wave’s elk-impeller’) SHIP > SEAFARER].’
In TGT the helmingr is cited to illustrate the rhetorical figure pleonasmos, which is defined as follows (TGT 1927, 56): hégómlig viðrlagning einnar sagnar yfir þat fram, sem fullu máli heyrir ‘a useless addition of a word beyond that which is suitable for the complete clause’. According to Óláfr Þórðarson (loc. cit.), in this particular case eyrum (lit. ‘with ears’, l. 4) is superfluous, because hearing is the only sense a person uses for listening to something, and one hears with the ears.
Nothing is known about the circumstances that prompted the composition of this half-stanza, and the identity of the ‘seafarer’ is also unknown. Finnur Jónsson (TGT 1927, 98) speculates that this may have been Kolbeinn’s brother-in-law, Bishop Guðmundr Arason of Hólar, but that cannot be ascertained.
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.
Mundi mér fyr stundu
mikit orðalag þikkja
ef elgrenni unnar
eyrum slíkt at heyra.
Mvndi mer fyrir stundv mikit orðalag þikkia æf ælgrænni vnnar æyrvm slict at | hæyra .
(VEÞ)
Mundi mér fyr stundu
mikit orðalag þikkja
of eldgrenni unnar
eyrum slíkt at heyra.
Mundi mer fyr stundu mikit orðalag þikkia um elld grenni | unnar æyrum slikt at hæyra.
(TW)
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