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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon (FoGT) 31III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise 31’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 608.

Anonymous LausavísurStanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise
303132

text and translation

Eigi er ván, að vága
viljag hyrjar þilju
eiga orðagnóga
— em eg reiðr — konu leiðaz,
þá er mier, en frá færumz,
forðum, bænarorðum;
sitja verðr og sýta
sig brúðr in óprúða.

Eigi er ván, að viljag eiga {orðagnóga þilju {hyrjar vága}} – eg em reiðr – [eg vil] leiðaz konu, þá er mier [kastaði] forðum, en færumz frá bænarorðum; in óprúða brúðr verðr sitja og sýta sig.
 
‘It is not to be expected that I will want to marry the loquacious plank of the fire of the waves [GOLD > WOMAN] – I am angry – [I want to] avoid that woman, who formerly [rejected] me, and get out of the courtship; let the inelegant woman sit and commiserate with herself.

notes and context

Stanza 31 is the sole illustration in FoGT of the figure called aposiopesis, which is defined as vilianlíg þrotnan mꜳls saker hrygðar eðr vþykkiv ‘a deliberate interruption of an utterance on account of grief or disapproval’. The figure was understood in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages as a kind of reticence brought about by strong feelings on the part of the orator resulting in the omission of implicit words (for examples see FoGT 2004, 209 and n. 78).

The misogynistic subject-matter of st. 31, which is in dróttkvætt metre, was probably not the invention of the Icelandic poet, but is likely to have been suggested by an example in a commentary to the Doctrinale (printed in FoGT 1884, 140 n.; cf. FoGT 2004, 209-10). — The prose text immediately below the stanza gives a key to the understanding of st. 31: her erv vilianliga or visvnni þersor orð: ‘saker reiði þokka’,ek vil’, ok i ǫðrvm stað: ‘kastaði’, ok skal sva vpp taka: Eigi er vꜳn at ek vilia, þviat ek em reiðr, eiga þa konv orð marga, er mer kastaði, þa er ek bað hennar. leiðaz vil ek hana, þo at nv vili hon eiga mik. Siti hon ok syti at skilia sina heimskv ‘here these words are deliberately left out of the stanza: “caused on account of anger,” “I want,” and, in another place “she rejected,” and this is the way it should be understood: It is not to be expected that I would want, because I am angry, to marry that woman of many words, who rejected me when I wooed her. I will loathe her, although now she wants to marry me. She can sit and lament so that she can understand her stupidity’. On this basis, the words eg vil ‘I want’ have been supplied in the Prose Order above to complete l. 4 and kastaði ‘[she] rejected’ to complete the sense of the rel. clause in ll. 5-6.

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 24: AII, 218, BII, 236, Skald II, 122, NN §2358; SnE 1848-87, II, 230-1, III, 160-1, FoGT 1884, 141, 281, FoGT 2004, 49, 74, 140-1, FoGT 2014, 32-5, 119-20.

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