RvHbreiðm Hl 55^III

Gætt at: Gautrekr þótti
góðr illr kyni þjóðar;
saddr varð svanr, en hræddisk
seint, skjótt, konungr, Þróttar.
Allvald frák, þanns óðisk,
opt, sjaldan, styr valda;
vǫrðr gekk fróns, né fœrðisk,
framm, aptr, í bǫð ramma.

Gætt at: Gautrekr þótti góðr, illr kyni þjóðar; {svanr Þróttar} varð saddr skjótt, en konungr hræddisk seint. Frák allvald, þanns óðisk sjaldan, valda opt styr; {vǫrðr fróns} gekk framm í ramma bǫð; né fœrðisk aptr.

Listen: Gautrekr seemed good [and] bad to the kin of men; {the swan of Þróttr <= Óðinn>} [RAVEN/EAGLE] was sated quickly, and the king was frightened slowly. I heard that the mighty ruler, who was seldom afraid, often caused uproar; {the guardian of the land} [RULER] went forwards in the strong battle; he did not pull back.

Mss: papp25ˣ(36v), R683ˣ(131v)

Readings: [1] Gætt: ‘Giættu’ papp25ˣ, ‘Giætto’ R683ˣ    [3] hræddisk: ‘ræiddist’ R683ˣ    [5] Allvald frák: frák allvald papp25ˣ, R683ˣ;    þanns: þann papp25ˣ, R683ˣ;    óðisk: ‘ædest’ papp25ˣ, R683ˣ    [6] sjaldan: ‘sialdar’ papp25ˣ, R683ˣ    [7] fœrðisk: ‘fordest’ papp25ˣ, R683ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 523, Skj BI, 500-1, Skald I, 246; Hl 1941, 28, 79-80.

Context: The metre is called refrún in meiri (‘Ref runur hin mæiri’) ‘the greater fox-secret’ (see sts 39-40), a dróttkvætt variant that corresponds to SnSt Ht 21 (refhvǫrf ‘fox-turns’).

Notes: [All]: In this stanza, antithesis occurs in all even lines: góðr ‘good’ : illr ‘bad’ (l. 2); seint ‘slowly’ : skjótt ‘quickly’ (l. 4); opt ‘often’ : sjaldan ‘seldom’ (l. 6); framm ‘forwards’ : aptr ‘back’ (l. 8). For this metrical variant, see Note to st. 39 [All]. Lines 3-4 and 5-8 of the present stanza illustrate how the metre got its name (refrún ‘fox-secret’). If the adverbs are lined up differently with the verbs they modify, the meaning of the clauses is reversed: ‘the raven/eagle was sated slowly, and the king was frightened quickly’ (ll. 3-4); ‘I heard that the mighty ruler, who was often afraid, seldom caused uproar’ (ll. 5-6); ‘the guardian of the land pulled back in the strong battle; he did not advance’ (ll. 7-8). See Holtsmark (Hl 1941, 125). In Ht, Snorri appears to have interpreted this variant somewhat differently than the poets of Hl (see Note to SnSt Ht 17 [All] and Introduction to Ht). — [All]: Gautrekr is the protagonist of Gautreks saga (see sts 53-4 above) and he was famous for his generosity (see also ÍF 26, 64 as well as Saxo 2005, I, 8, 16, 1-8, 16, 8, pp. 578-83). — [1]: The first line contains three internal rhymes (-ætt : ‑aut- : ‑ótt), and Skj B and Skald emend gætt at (imp.) ‘listen, pay attention’ (‘Giættu at’ papp25ˣ; ‘Giætto at’ 683ˣ) to golli (n. dat. sg.) ‘to gold’ (cf. st. 56/7-8) which is construed with illr ‘bad’ (l. 2): ‘Gautrekr seemed ill to gold (and) good to the kin of men’. That interpretation, which has no support in the mss, forces a violation of syntax (the finite verb occurs in syntactic position 3). Holtsmark suggests the emendation of ‘giættu at’ to ‘getþu at’ ‘guess if’. That emendation is not in keeping with Rugman’s orthography, because [e] is never written <iæ>  (see Hl 1941). The same objection can be made to the syntactically simpler getk, at ‘I say that’. For a similar use of gætt at, cf. the Y redaction of LaufE in which Giæt hier ad ‘Pay attention here’ is used to translate Lat. nota (LaufE 1979, 259, 335). In the present stanza, it looks as though the first poet is presenting the second poet with a riddle, telling him to pay attention (gætt at) and try to unravel why people considered Gautrekr to be both ‘good’ (góðr) and ‘bad’ (illr). The second poet solves that riddle in st. 56/7-8 (see below). — [2]: The line is repeated in st. 56/8. — [2] illr ‘bad’: Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848, 244) takes this as an adj. qualifying svanr ‘swan’ (l. 3), which is less preferable from the point of view of word order. — [5]: Rugman renders this line as ‘fra ec allvald þann ædest’ (papp25ˣ), which most earlier eds emend to frák allvald, þanns óðisk ‘I heard the mighty ruler, who became frightened’. That emendation yields a line whose structure is unparalleled in the skaldic corpus (Type C with a sentence boundary after position 3). In the present edn, the order of the first two words has been reversed to create a Type A-line (see the similar type in sts 57/1, 3 and 58/1, 3). In either rendition, the line does not contain internal rhyme. — [6, 7]: ‘Sialdar’ (l. 6) for sjaldan ‘seldom’ and ‘fordest’ (l. 7) for fœrðisk ‘draw (back)’ are Rugman’s misreadings.

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. SnE 1848 = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1848. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, eða Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja landsins.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. LaufE 1979 = Faulkes, Anthony, ed. 1979. Edda Magnúsar Ólafssonar (Laufás Edda). RSÁM 13. Vol. I of Two Versions of Snorra Edda from the 17th Century. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977-9.
6. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
7. Saxo 2005 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2005. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum / Danmarkshistorien. Trans. Peter Zeeberg. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og litteraturselskab & Gads forlag.
8. Hl 1941 = Jón Helgason and Anne Holtsmark, eds. 1941. Háttalykill enn forni. BA 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
9. Internal references
10. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Gautreks saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 241. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=9> (accessed 19 April 2024)
11. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Háttatal’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=165> (accessed 19 April 2024)
12. Kari Ellen Gade 2017, ‘ Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1001. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1347> (accessed 19 April 2024)
13. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 17’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1121.
14. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 21’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1127.
15. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Laufás Edda’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10928> (accessed 19 April 2024)