Hildibrandr Lv 1VIII (Ásm 1)
Peter Jorgensen (ed.) 2017, ‘Ásmundar saga kappabana 1 (Hildibrandr, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 16.
Mjök ‘It is very difficult’
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mjǫk (adv.): very, much
er ‘to’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
vandgætt ‘deal with’
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vandgætr (adj.)
notes
[1] vandgætt ‘difficult to deal with’: This cpd adj. has only one attested usage in prose, notably in Hallfr (Hallfr 1977, 52-3), where King Óláfr Tryggvason says to Hallfreðr that the sword he is giving him will be vandgætt because it has no sheath. Here Hildibrandr may mean that his fate, of being the killer of his half-brother, is a situation that is difficult to handle.
hvé ‘how’
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hvé (conj.): how
verða ‘be’
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1. verða (verb): become, be
skal ‘one must’
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skulu (verb): shall, should, must
um ‘’
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2. um (particle): (particle)
borinn ‘born’
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3. bera (verb; °berr; bar, báru; borinn): bear, carry
öðrum ‘of another’
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1. annarr (pron.; °f. ǫnnur, n. annat; pl. aðrir): (an)other, second
at ‘to become’
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3. at (prep.): at, to
banaorði ‘the slayer’
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banaorð (noun n.): °drab; death, killing (lit.: news of (sby’s) death)
Þik ‘to you’
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þú (pron.; °gen. þín, dat. þér, acc. þik): you
Drótt ‘Drótt’
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2. drótt (noun f.): °lintel
notes
[5] Drótt: Name of the mother of both Ásmundr and Hildibrandr; she is consistently called Hildr in the saga prose, but always Drota or Drot in Saxo, which would indicate that the prose was added a considerable time after the stanzas were composed.
um ‘gave’
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2. um (particle): (particle)
bar ‘birth’
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3. bera (verb; °berr; bar, báru; borinn): bear, carry
af ‘in’
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af (prep.): from
notes
[6] af ‘in’: Lit. ‘from’. Several eds (e.g. Edd. Min., Skald) often emend af to í or á to better reflect events in the story. If an emendation is necessary, it could be either á, which would better parallel l. 8, or í for both lines, which would be the more common form.
Danmörku ‘Denmark’
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Danmǫrk (noun f.): [Denmark]
en ‘and’
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2. en (conj.): but, and
mik ‘to me’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
sjálfan ‘myself’
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sjalfr (adj.): self
á ‘in’
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3. á (prep.): on, at
Svíþjóðu ‘Sweden’
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Svíþjóð (noun f.): [Sweden]
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
After Ásmundr has slain a succession of Hildibrandr’s best warriors, Hildibrandr breaks into a berserk rage, slays his own son, and meets Ásmundr at the River Rhine. Hildibrandr’s sword breaks on his adversary’s helmet and flies into the Rhine. Mortally wounded, he utters a poem of six stanzas.
[3, 5]: In both ll. 3 and 5, the first element of the ms.’s of borinn ‘be born’ and of bar ‘bore’ has been normalised to um, to conform to Old Norse usage of the period after 1250. The untranslatable pleonastic particle of occurs most commonly in early poetic texts, and its presence here suggests a lengthy transmission history for this stanza. — [5-6]: These lines are similar to Saxo 2015, I, vii. 9. 14, ll. 9-11, pp. 506-8: ‘Danica te tellus, me Sueticus edidit orbis, | Drot tibi maternum quondam distenderat uber: Hac genitrice tibi pariter collacteus exto’ ‘Danish territory bore you, | Sweden me. Once Drot extended a mother’s | breast to you; I too sucked milk from her teat.’
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