Anon (FoGT) 17^III

Píndr er stuldr, þar er standa
stafnreiðar hímleiðir
víða, vingameiði,
viðir hjá torgi miðju.
Morð eru hjólum hörðum
hegnd, þau er illa gegndu,
þar er riett vísar ræsir
rómsæll skipun dóma.

Stuldr er píndr vingameiði, þar er {hímleiðir viðir {stafnreiðar}} standa víða hjá miðju torgi. Morð, þau er gegndu illa, eru hegnd hörðum hjólum, þar er rómsæll ræsir vísar riett skipun dóma.

Theft is punished by the windswept tree [gallows] where {universally loathed trees {of the prow-chariot}} [SHIP > SEAFARERS] stand in many places near the middle of the market-place. Murders, which were bad, are chastised by hard wheels, where the praised ruler carries out correctly the order of the courts.

Mss: W(114) (FoGT)

Readings: [2] ‑leiðir: ‑leiða W    [3] ‑meiði: meiðar W    [8] rómsæll: ‘romsæl’ W

Editions: Skj AII, 216, Skj BII, 233, Skald II, 121, NN §2355; SnE 1848-87, II, 212-13, III, 157, FoGT 1884, 131, 261̀-2, FoGT 2004, 40, 67, 110-12, FoGT 2014, 18-19, 84-6.

Context: The prose introduction to this stanza defines emphasis thus: Emphasis setr vnderstaðligan lvt fyrer hræriligvm lvt, sem þa er ver merkivm nokkvt tilfelli mannzens fyrer sialfvm hanvm, sem at nefna glæpinn fyrer glæpa manninvm, eðr vizkvna fyrer vitringinvm, ok gengr þessi figvra vm alla þessa visv ‘Emphasis uses a substantive entity instead of a moveable entity, as when we signify some accidental quality of a man instead of the man himself, such as mentioning the crime instead of the criminal, or wisdom instead of the wise man, and this figure permeates this stanza’. After the stanza, FoGT explains: Her er stvldrinn kallaðr pindr ok morðin hegnd, þar sem morðinginn er hegndr ok þiofrinn ‘Here the theft is said to be punished and the murders chastised, whereas the murderer is punished and the thief’.

Notes: [All]: Several emendations are required to make grammatical and syntactic sense of this stanza. The modes of punishment mentioned in this stanza seem to capture C14th penal codes very accurately. Theft was punished by hanging in a public place, here a market place, while murderers were punished by being broken on a wheel (Gade 1985a; Ström 1942, 214-24). — [1] píndr ‘punished’: An unusual use of the verb pína, which normally means ‘torture, torment’, but doubtless required to provide an example of emphasis according to the Fourth Grammarian’s understanding of the figure (see FoGT 1884, 262 n. 7). — [2] hímleiðir ‘universally loathed’: The meaning of this otherwise unattested cpd adj. is uncertain. Ms. W reads hímleiða, which SnE 1848-87, LP (1860) and Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884) adopt unemended as an indeclinable cpd adj. with the sense ‘tired of waiting [to be strung up on the gallows]’. It is questionable whether such an adj. could be seen as appropriate to the description of criminals waiting to be hanged, unless it is used ironically. The same sense is assumed by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), though he emends the adj. to the m. pl. form hímleiðir. These eds, implicitly or explicitly, have connected the first element of the adj., hím-, with the Old Icelandic verb híma ‘loiter, hang around’ and the noun hímaldi ‘laggard, dreamer, good-for-nothing’. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884, 261 n. 2) tentatively suggested the first element could perhaps be written hvim-, and this spelling was adopted by Kock (Skald), though without explanation. The second element of the adj. seems to be formed from the adj. leiðr ‘loathed, disliked, hateful’. An alternative sense of hímleiðir was proposed by Finnur Jónsson in LP. He interprets the cpd (LP: hveimleiðr, hímleiðr) as = hveimleiðr, understood as composed of the elements hveim ‘by each’ and leiðr ‘loathed’, to give the sense ‘loathed by each, universally loathed’, and this interpretation has been adopted here. — [3] víða ‘in many places’: Here construed as an adv. ‘in many places, widely’. So also SnE 1848-87 and FoGT 1884. Kock (Skald and NN §2355) emends to víðum ‘wide, broad’ (adj. m. dat. sg.) to agree with vingameiði ‘windswept tree’ (l. 3), while Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Longo (FoGT 2004) emend to víðu (adj. n. dat. sg.) to agree with torgi ‘market place’ (l. 4). Neither emendation is necessary to make sense of the helmingr. — [3] vingameiði ‘by the windswept tree [gallows]’: Taken here as an instr. dat. Ms. W has ‘vinga meiðar’, regarded by all eds (except SnE 1848-87) as a cpd noun for the gallows, following the reference in Hávm 138/2 (NK 40) where the god Óðinn claims that he hung for nine nights vindgameiði á. The first element of the cpd is a contraction of vindga- (from vindugr ‘windy’); cf. LP: vingameiðr. A difficulty here is that one would normally expect the prep. á ‘on’ with the noun, but the rather artificial context of this stanza’s creation may have led to a number of abnormal syntactic constructions. — [4] hjá miðju torgi ‘near the middle of the market-place’: Or possibly ‘in the middle of the market-place’, though hjá is not to be expected, if so (cf. FoGT 1884, 261-2 n. 4). Some eds (e.g. Skj B, FoGT 2004) take this phrase with the first clause, viz. Stuldr er píndr hjá miðju torgi víðu/víðum vingameiði ‘Theft is punished in the middle of the [wide] market-place by the wide windswept tree’. — [8] rómsæll ‘praised’: Lit. ‘applause-fortunate’. This is Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s emendation (SnE 1848-87, II, 212) for W’s ‘romsæl’ has been adopted by all subsequent eds. The cpd adj. is hap. leg.

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 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. 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.
7. LP (1860) = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1860. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis. Copenhagen: Societas Regia antiquariorum septentrionalium.
8. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
9. Gade, Kari Ellen. 1985a. ‘Hanging in Northern Law and Literature’. MM, 159-83.
10. FoGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
11. FoGT 2004 = Longo, Michele, ed. [2004]. ‘Il Quarto Trattato Grammaticale Islandese: Testo, Traduzione e Commento’. Dottorato di Ricerca in ‘Linguistica Sincronica e Diacronica’ (XV Ciclo). Palermo: Università degli Studi di Palermo, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia.
12. Ström, Folke. 1942. On the Sacral Origin of the Germanic Death Penalties. Kungl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademiens handlingar, 52. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand.
13. FoGT 2014 = Clunies Ross, Margaret and Jonas Wellendorf, eds. 2014. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
14. Internal references
15. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, The Fourth Grammatical Treatise’ 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=34> (accessed 27 April 2024)
16. Not published: do not cite ()