RvHbreiðm Hl 34^III

Hjartat dugði jǫfri ǫrum;
ýtar fylgðu hilmi snǫrum;
segja kannk frá fylkis fǫrum;
fyrða beitti lið með ǫrum.
Harðir ôttu hermenn saman;
hilding frák við gunni taman;
hônum þótti at geirleik gaman;
greppar leyfðu vísa framan.

Hjartat dugði ǫrum jǫfri; ýtar fylgðu snǫrum hilmi; kannk segja frá fǫrum fylkis; beitti lið fyrða með ǫrum. Harðir hermenn ôttu saman; frák hilding taman við gunni; hônum þótti gaman at {geirleik}; greppar leyfðu framan vísa.

The heart helped the liberal prince; men followed the bold ruler; I can tell about the leader’s expeditions; he killed the troop of men with arrows. Hardened warriors joined [battle] against one another; I heard that the lord was trained in warfare; he took pleasure in {spear-play} [BATTLE]; poets praised the outstanding leader.

Mss: papp25ˣ(33v-34r), R683ˣ(128v)

Readings: [2] fylgðu: so R683ˣ, ‘fijldo’ papp25ˣ    [4] beitti: beitti hann papp25ˣ, R683ˣ;    ǫrum: so R683ˣ, árum papp25ˣ    [7] ‑leik: ‘‑læc’ papp25ˣ, R683ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 518, Skj BI, 495, Skald I, 243; Hl 1941, 25, 66.

Context: As st. 33 above.

Notes: [1-4]: Cf. the similar rhymes in SnSt Ht 80. — [1] hjartat ‘the heart’: Note the suffixed def. art. on this noun. — [4] beitti ‘he killed’: Both mss add the pron. hann ‘he’, which makes the line hypermetrical and has been deleted as part of the process of normalisation in the present edn (it is retained in earlier eds). The verb beita lit. ‘be bitten by’ (beitti 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic.) is taken in the meaning ‘kill, hunt, overcome sby’ here (see LP: 2. beita; Fritzner: beita 3; Heggstad et al. 2008: beita 4). — [5] ôttu saman ‘joined [battle] against one another’: Lit. ‘had [battle] against one another’. Eiga ‘have’ (ôttu 3rd pers. pl. pret. indic.) with a suppressed object. See Fritzner: eiga saman 4 for this meaning of the verb-adv. collocation. — [7] hônum þótti ... gaman ‘he took pleasure’: Lit. ‘it seemed pleasurable to him’. — [7] geirleik ‘spear-play [BATTLE]’: The mss render the last element of this cpd as ‘-læc’, in which <æ> represents earlier [ei], reflecting the development in Norwegian dialects after 1150 (see Seip 1955, 143; Hl 1941, 105).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
4. 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.
5. Seip, Didrik Arup. 1955. Norsk språkhistorie til omkring 1370. 2nd edn. Oslo: Aschehoug.
6. Hl 1941 = Jón Helgason and Anne Holtsmark, eds. 1941. Háttalykill enn forni. BA 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
7. Internal references
8. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 80’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1191.