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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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SnSt Ht 28III

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 28’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1134.

Snorri SturlusonHáttatal
272829

text and translation

Vandbaugs veitti sendir
vígrakkr, en gjǫf þakkak
skjaldbraks skylja mildum,
skipreiðu mér, heiða.
Fann næst fylkir unna
fǫl dýr at gjǫf stýri
stálhreins; styrjar deilis
stórlæti sák mæta.

{Vígrakkr sendir {vandbaugs}} veitti mér skipreiðu, en þakkak skylja, mildum {skjaldbraks}, heiða gjǫf. Næst fann fylkir {fǫl dýr unna} at gjǫf {stýri {stálhreins}}; sák mæta stórlæti {deilis styrjar}.
 
‘The battle-brave sender of the rod of the shield-boss [SWORD > WARRIOR = Hákon] provided me with a levy district, and I thank the lord, liberal with shield-crash [BATTLE], for the glorious gift. Next the leader selected pale animals of the waves [SHIPS] as a gift for the steerer of the stem-reindeer [SHIP > SEAFARER]; I saw the noble munificence of the controller of strife [WARRIOR].

notes and context

The stanza illustrates tvískelft ‘twice-trembled’ (or ‘double-shaken’, SnE 2007, 156). This is a variant of dróttkvætt in which the odd lines have alliteration in positions 1 and 3 (Type A-lines) and position 2 is occupied by a long, heavy syllable (Type A2l) rather than by a short enclitic derivational or inflectional ending or by a proclitic formword. In Snorri’s variant the first internal rhyme in the odd lines falls in metrical position 1. In TGT ll. 3-4 are given as an example of Cacenphaton (ON þreskǫld ‘threshold’), when the final sound in one word is the same as the onset of the next word, here -braks skylja.

The headings are tvískelft .xxi. ‘twice-trembled, the twenty-first’ () and tvískelft (U(47r)). The term must refer to the metrically heavy onset of the odd lines (Sievers’s Type A2l), directly followed by the second alliterative stave in metrical position 3. See also RvHbreiðm Hl 81-2, as well as Hallv Knútdr and HSt RstI. This is the first stanza in the second category of dróttkvætt (sts 28-67), in which Snorri exemplifies variants of dróttkvætt in terms of alliteration, variations of hendingar and length of lines (see Introduction above). — Lines 3-4 are attributed to Snorri in TGT.

readings

sources

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.

editions and texts

Skj: Snorri Sturluson, 2. Háttatal 28: AII, 59-60, BII, 68, Skald II, 39; SnE 1848-87, I, 638-9, II, 371, 386, III, 117, SnE 1879-81, I, 4, 77, II, 14, SnE 1931, 228, SnE 2007, 16; Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, I, 18-19; SnE 1848-87, II, 122-3, 412, TGT 1884, 19, 79, 190, TGT 1927, 55, 97.

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