EirRagn Lv 1VIII (Ragn 11)
Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 11 (Eiríkr Ragnarsson, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 648.
Vil ‘wish’
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vilja (verb): want, intend
ek ‘I’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
eigi ‘do not’
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3. eigi (adv.): not
boð ‘an offer’
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boð (noun n.; °-s; -): command, offer, feast
fyrir ‘for’
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fyrir (prep.): for, before, because of
né ‘nor’
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né (conj.): nor
baugum ‘with rings’
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baugr (noun m.; °dat. -i/-; -ar): ring
mey ‘a maiden’
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mær (noun f.; °meyjar, dat. meyju; meyjar): maiden
kaupa ‘to purchase’
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kaupa (verb): buy
Eystein ‘Eysteinn’
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Eysteinn (noun m.): Eysteinn
notes
[3-4] kveða Eystein orðinn bana Agnars ‘they say that Eysteinn has become Agnarr’s slayer’: An acc. and inf. construction; cf. Ragn 13/6, below.
kveða ‘they say that’
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kveða (verb; kveð, kvað, kveðinn): (str.) say, recite, sing
notes
[3-4] kveða Eystein orðinn bana Agnars ‘they say that Eysteinn has become Agnarr’s slayer’: An acc. and inf. construction; cf. Ragn 13/6, below.
orðinn ‘has become’
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1. verða (verb): become, be
notes
[3-4] kveða Eystein orðinn bana Agnars ‘they say that Eysteinn has become Agnarr’s slayer’: An acc. and inf. construction; cf. Ragn 13/6, below.
Agnars ‘Agnarr’s’
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Agnarr (noun m.): Agnarr
notes
[3-4] kveða Eystein orðinn bana Agnars ‘they say that Eysteinn has become Agnarr’s slayer’: An acc. and inf. construction; cf. Ragn 13/6, below.
bana ‘slayer’
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bani (noun m.; °-a; -ar): death, killer
notes
[3-4] kveða Eystein orðinn bana Agnars ‘they say that Eysteinn has become Agnarr’s slayer’: An acc. and inf. construction; cf. Ragn 13/6, below.
heyra ‘to hear of’
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2. heyra (verb): hear
notes
[5] grætr mik eigi ‘does not weep for me’: Eiríkr’s mother is Þóra, who is no longer alive (see the Context for Ragn 1, above); the meaning here seems to be ‘there is no mother to weep for me’. The pres. tense reading grætr of Hb thus seems more appropriate than 1824b’s pret. reading grét ‘did (not) weep’, which Rafn (FSN) retains, in contrast to all other eds, who follow Hb here.
eigi ‘does not’
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3. eigi (adv.): not
notes
[5] grætr mik eigi ‘does not weep for me’: Eiríkr’s mother is Þóra, who is no longer alive (see the Context for Ragn 1, above); the meaning here seems to be ‘there is no mother to weep for me’. The pres. tense reading grætr of Hb thus seems more appropriate than 1824b’s pret. reading grét ‘did (not) weep’, which Rafn (FSN) retains, in contrast to all other eds, who follow Hb here.
mik ‘for me’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
notes
[5] grætr mik eigi ‘does not weep for me’: Eiríkr’s mother is Þóra, who is no longer alive (see the Context for Ragn 1, above); the meaning here seems to be ‘there is no mother to weep for me’. The pres. tense reading grætr of Hb thus seems more appropriate than 1824b’s pret. reading grét ‘did (not) weep’, which Rafn (FSN) retains, in contrast to all other eds, who follow Hb here.
móðir ‘mother’
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móðir (noun f.): mother
ek ‘I’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
[6] mun ek (‘mon ek’): so Hb, menn ok 1824b
eptir ‘afterwards’
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eptir (prep.): after, behind
[6] eptir öl drekka: øfstr á val deyja Hb
drekka ‘be drinking’
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2. drekka (verb; °drekkr; drakk, drukku; drukkinn/drykkinn): drink
[6] eptir öl drekka: øfstr á val deyja Hb
ok ‘and’
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3. ok (conj.): and, but; also
geir ‘spear’
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geirr (noun m.): spear < geirtré (noun n.)
tré ‘shafts’
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tré (noun n.; °-s; tré/trjó, gen. trjá, dat. trjóm/trjám): tree < geirtré (noun n.)
í ‘run’
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í (prep.): in, into
látið ‘let’
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láta (verb): let, have sth done
mik ‘me’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
standa ‘’
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standa (verb): stand
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
There is a difference in context here between Ragn (preserved in 1824b) and RagnSon (preserved in Hb). In Ragn, after Ragnarr has abandoned his idea of a Swedish marriage, his two sons by Þóra, Eiríkr and Agnarr, invade Sweden, for no very clear reason. They are defeated by King Eysteinn in a battle in which Agnarr falls. Eiríkr is offered both his life and Eysteinn’s daughter in marriage, but prefers to die by impalement on spears, as he indicates here. In RagnSon, on the other hand, the brothers’ motivation is clear: they wish to make Eysteinn tributary to themselves rather than to their father Ragnarr, and with this in mind Eiríkr sues for the hand of Eysteinn’s daughter, but because Eysteinn rejects his suit the brothers invade his kingdom. They are defeated in a battle in which Agnarr falls, as in Ragn, and Eysteinn then offers Eiríkr his daughter in marriage.
[1]: This line is unmetrical, but could be made metrical by converting vil ek eigi ‘I do not wish’ to vilkat, with the same meaning. — [1-2]: In the prose immediately preceding this stanza in RagnSon (Hb 1892-6, 459-60) and Ragn (1824b, Ragn 1906-8, 139), Eiríkr is offered Eysteinn’s daughter in marriage, but only in RagnSon is he offered compensation for his brother Agnarr’s death as well (cf. l. 1). — [6-8]: Apart from Rafn (FSN), who in l. 6 adopts from 1824b the apparently meaningless reading menn ok eptir öl drekka, all eds follow Hb here, reading l. 6 as mun ek efstr of val deyja ‘I will die uppermost (i.e. ‘last’, as CPB has it) on the heap of the slain’. These eds apart from Kock and Örnólfur Thorsson (see below) also take the first word of l. 8, gör ‘prepared’, as gerr, gǫrr m. nom. sg. ‘prepared, ready’ and as referring predicatively to ek, the speaker of the stanza, thus giving the meaning ‘I, ready (as I am to do so), will die’, etc. (Rafn, FSN, and Ragn 1906-8, 139, read this word in 1824b as geir and geirr (acc. and nom. sg. of geirr m. ‘spear’?) respectively, giving little sense in the context; Skj A’s 1824b reading ‘gera’, yielding even less sense, is correct, however.) In l. 6 the present edn adopts from Hb only the words mun ek, understanding eptir ‘afterwards’ as adverbial here and the line as referring to the drinking of ale after death in Valhǫll (cf. Grí 36/9). In l. 8 the present edn follows Kock, Skald (gǫr), and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) (gjör), in taking the adj. gör as n. acc. pl. and referring attributively to geirtré ‘prepared spears, spears prepared (for the purpose)’, in the previous line. This, as Kock (NN §1453) argues, seems a more natural explanation of the syntax of the passage than that which would seek to link the adj. to the 1st pers. pron. ek of l. 6.
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