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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon (FoGT) 29III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise 29’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 605.

Anonymous LausavísurStanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise
282930

text and translation

Mætum stend eg að móti
mensveigjanda eigi;
rís eg við Ránar eisu
runni flærðarkunnum.
Því heit eg víst að veita
vígs dreingiligt geingi;
þier heit eg mest að móti
meginstrangliga að ganga.

Eg stend eigi að móti {mætum mensveigjanda}; eg rís við {flærðarkunnum runni {eisu Ránar}}. Eg heit því víst að veita dreingiligt geingi vígs; eg heit mest að ganga meginstrangliga að móti þier.
 
‘I do not stand opposed to the excellent necklace-distributor [GENEROUS MAN]; I oppose the notoriously deceitful tree of the fire of Rán <goddess> [GOLD > MAN]. I certainly promise to give valiant support in a fight; I promise most to oppose you very strongly.

notes and context

Stanza 29 in dróttkvætt metre illustrates the figure called aclacassis (Lat. antanaclassis or anticlasis) in the prose of FoGT. It is defined thus: Aclacassis er þat, ef maðr setr tvenna skilninga gagnstaðliga með einvm orðumAclacassis comes about if one proposes two opposing meanings with the same words’. Straight after the stanza, the author comments: Her er þessi figvra tvitekin ok synd í bꜳ̋ðvm visv helmingvm ‘Here this figure is repeated and shown in both halves of the stanza’.

FoGT’s representation of the figure anticlasis is dependent on the prescription in the Doctrinale (Reichling 1893, 176, ll. 2608-9): Sensus oppositos notat anticlasis eodem | verbo: non obsto, sed toto posse resistoAnticlasis denotes opposite senses in the same word: I do not oppose, but I resist in everything possible’. The Icelandic examples in the first helmingr, Eg stend eigi að móti ‘I do not stand opposed’ and eg rís við ‘I oppose’, are clearly dependent on the similar senses of the verbs obsto and resisto in the Latin example. In the second helmingr the relevance of the examples to the figure is less clear, though both probably indicate that the speaker will fight or oppose his adversary (‘you’ in l. 7); both clauses use forms of the verb heita in the sense ‘promise’ rather than any of its other meanings (‘call, be called, invoke’).

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: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], D. 3. Vers af den 4. grt. afhandling 23: AII, 218, BII, 236, Skald II, 122; SnE 1848-87, II, 228-9, III, 160, FoGT 1884, 139-40, 279-80, FoGT 2004, 48, 73, 137-9, FoGT 2014, 32-3, 116.

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