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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Sveinn Norðrdr 3III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Sveinn, Norðrsetudrápa 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 400.

SveinnNorðrsetudrápa
23

text and translation

Dœtr Hlés á við blésu.

{Dœtr Hlés} blésu á við.
 
‘The daughters of Hlér <= Ægir> [WAVES] blew against the ship.

notes and context

This line is cited by Óláfr Þórðarson in ch. 16 of the Málskrúðsfræði section of TGT on various figures and tropes. He uses Sveinn’s line to exemplify a kind of irony, antiphrasis, which, he says, occurs when a single noun means the opposite of its lexical sense. The example relates to the personal name Hlér, which Óláfr must have understood to mean ‘Calm one’, for he says (TGT 1927, 85): Hér er sær kallaðr hlér, þvíat hann hlýr allra minst ‘Here the sea is called Hlér, because it does not protect at all’.

The full verse context of this line can only be guessed at. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 232) suggested that it might be the last line of the same helmingr as st. 2 above.

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: Sveinn, Norðrsetudrápa 3: AI, 418, BI, 388, Skald I, 192; SnE 1848-87, II, 180-1, 425, TGT 1884, 30, 114, 231-2, TGT 1927, 85, 108.

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