Útsteinn Útkv 9^VIII (Hálf 50)

Magni fýsir engi         við mik at deila,
þvíat mér var ungum         aldr skapaðr.
Ek hefi hjarta         hart í brjósti,
sízt mér í æsku         Óðinn framði.

Engi fýsir at deila magni við mik, þvíat aldr var skapaðr mér ungum. Ek hefi hart hjarta í brjósti, sízt Óðinn framði mér í æsku.

Nobody is eager to pit his strength against me, for a long life was fated to me as a young man. I have a firm heart in my breast, since Óðinn furthered it for me in my youth.

Mss: 2845(37v) (Hálf)

Readings: [3] ungum: ‘angum’ 2845

Editions: Skj AII, 264, Skj BII, 286, Skald II, 150, NN §3191; Hálf 1864, 30, Hálf 1909, 118-19, FSGJ 2, 123, Hálf 1981, 131, 190; Edd. Min. 73.

Notes: [All]: There are various metrical irregularities in ll. 1-4, the first two of which are málaháttr (for l. 1, see Note below). Line 2 could be made regular if the at in at deila were deleted, as is done in Skj B and Skald. Line 4 could also be restored to regularity if the expletive particle of or um were added as aldr of/um skapaðr, a collocation that is common in Old Norse poetry; cf. eino dœgri | mér var aldr um scapaðr (Skí 13/4-5, NK 72) ‘on one day my life was shaped’. — [1]: Most eds have altered this line to produce metrical regularity. Skj B adopts a suffixed negative verb magni fýsit instead of magni fýsir engi. Edd. Min. and Andrews (Hálf 1909) emend the ms.’s magni to man(n)gi ‘nobody’, fýsir to fýsi and delete engi ‘nobody’. Kock (NN §3191) assumes similarly that l. 1 originally read Mangi fýsir ‘No one is eager’ and emends the text accordingly in Skald. He argues that when, at some point, -ng- got confused with -gn-, so that nom. mangi ‘nobody’ was understood as dat. magni ‘strength’, the line came to lack a negation and nom. engi ‘nobody’ was added to it. Since the ms. reading makes perfect sense and the phrase deila magni ‘pit one’s strength’ is also used in Anon Lil 8/8^VII (albeit with the younger dat. form megni), emendation seems unnecessary. — [3] ungum ‘young’: All eds have emended the ms.’s ‘angum’, which is clearly a scribal error. — [5-8]: Útsteinn here expresses two commonplaces of Old Norse heroic poetry, that, as a man of courage, he has a hard heart (cf. Note to Anon Mhkv 7/1^III and von See 1978), and that Óðinn, the Norse god most frequently associated with warfare, has promoted his warlike nature. Finnur Jónsson (LP: fremja 7) has suggested that mér ‘for me’ (l. 7) might be a mistake for mik ‘me’ (acc.) and that the sense of ll. 7-8 might be ‘since Óðinn furthered me in my youth’, as this would conform more closely to ideas that Óðinn helped and supported his chosen warriors, rather than strengthened their hearts, a notion that is not attested elsewhere.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
8. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
9. Hálf 1981 = Seelow, Hubert, ed. 1981. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. RSÁM 20. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar.
10. See, Klaus von. 1978. ‘Das Herz in Edda und Skaldendichtung’. skandinavistik 8, 16-26. Rpt. in von See 1981a, 73-83.
11. Hálf 1864 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1864. Saga af Hálfi ok Hálfsrekkum. Norrøne Skrifter af sagnhistorisk Indhold 1. Christiania (Oslo): Det Nordiske Oldskriftselskab.
12. Hálf 1909 = Andrews, A. Le Roy, ed. 1909. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. ASB 14. Halle: Niemeyer.
13. Internal references
14. Roberta Frank (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Málsháttakvæði 7’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1221.
15. Martin Chase (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Lilja 8’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 570-1.
16. Not published: do not cite ()