Rloð Lv 7^VIII (Ragn 23)

These three stanzas reflect a parting scene between Ragnarr and his wife Áslaug. In Ragn 24 he responds to the criticism that he is using the wrong type of ship for his planned invasion of England, and in Ragn 25 Kráka-Áslaug gives him a protective shirt of hair.

Spari manngi röf Rínar,
ef röskr vili hermenn;
verr samir hoskum hilmi
hringa fjölð en drengja.
Ilt er í borghlið baugum
brandrauðum fram standa;
allmarga veit ek jöfra,
þá er auðr lifir, dauða.

Spari manngi {röf Rínar}, ef röskr vili hermenn; fjölð hringa samir hoskum hilmi verr en drengja. Ilt er standa fram í borghlið brandrauðum baugum; ek veit allmarga jöfra dauða, þá er auðr lifir.

Let no person be sparing of {the amber of the Rhine} [GOLD], if a brave man should want soldiers; a multitude of rings befits a wise ruler worse than one of men. It is no good entering the gate of a stronghold with fire-red rings; I know of very many kings who are dead, while their wealth lives on.

Mss: 1824b(70v), 147(110v) (Ragn)

Readings: [1] Spari manngi röf Rínar: ‘(sp)ari mangi Rauf […]ar’(?) 147    [2] ef röskr vili hermenn: ‘ef […] vil(i) […]’(?) 147    [3] verr samir hoskum hilmi: ‘[…] (s[…]mir […]skum hilmi)’(?) 147    [4] hringa: ‘[…]ga’ 147;    fjölð: so 147, ‘folld’ 1824b;    en drengja: ‘en dre(ng)’(?) 147    [5] Ilt er: ‘illt (er)’(?) 147;    í borghlið baugum: ‘íborg lið bavga’ 1824b, ‘[…]’ 147    [6] brandrauðum fram standa: ‘[…] (audum) fra(m) […]da’(?) 147    [7] allmarga veit ek jöfra: ‘all […] ek iau(fra)’(?) 147    [8] þá er: ‘(þ)a er’(?) 147;    auðr: ‘vaðr’ 1824b, ‘[…]’ 147;    lifir dauða: ‘(lifir dauda)’(?) 147

Editions: Skj AII, 237-8, Skj BII, 257, Skald II, 133, NN §3181; FSN 1, 278-9 (Ragn ch. 14), Ragn 1891, 208 (ch. 14), Ragn 1906-8, 155, 186, 210-11 (ch. 15), Ragn 1944, 92-3, 95 (ch. 15), FSGJ 1, 265 (Ragn ch. 15), Ragn 1985, 137 (ch. 15), Ragn 2003, 49-50 (ch. 15), CPB II, 350.

Context: After his sons’ defeat of Eysteinn, their further victory at Vífilsborg (Avenches), and their triumphant progress to Lúna (Luni) (where they abandon the idea of proceeding as far as Rome), Ragnarr, now at home in his kingdom, resolves to win a fame no less lasting than theirs. He decides to invade England with only two ships, and here responds to the forebodings expressed by his wife Kráka-Áslaug, now known as Randalín since her leadership of the land division in the expedition against Eysteinn.

Notes: [All]: The overall meaning of this stanza is hard to grasp. It seems to be that an aspiring military leader must be prepared to part with his wealth in order to attract followers, because a large following will serve him better than a large store of rings, which are of no use in leading an attack on a stronghold, and also because he will not wish to be remembered as one who hoarded wealth. — [2]: The present edn follows 1824b in reading ef röskr vili (pres. subj.) ‘if a brave man should want’, i.e. ‘if he, (himself) brave, should want …’ (so also Olsen (Ragn 1906-8), Eskeland (Ragn 1944), Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) and Ebel (Ragn 2003)). Though not so common in prose, the use of the pres. subj. in ef-clauses is amply attested in poetry, see CVC: ef B. Rafn (FSN) normalises 1824b’s ‘rauskr’ to röskr and retains the 1824b reading vili, Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891; also CPB) emends to ef röskva vill (pres. indic.) ‘if he wants brave (soldiers)’, with röskva ‘brave’ as a m. acc. pl. adj. agreeing with and qualifying hermenn ‘soldiers’, and is followed in this respect by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), Kock (Skald) and Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ). — [3] hoskum (m. dat. sg.) ‘wise’: Rafn (FSN), Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891) and the present ed. retain the 1824b reading here; hoskr is a variant spelling of horskr, see Fritzner: horskr. All other eds print horskum. — [4] fjölð ‘multitude’: This, the reading of 147, is adopted in this edn as in almost all previous eds. Ms. 1824b’s fold ‘land’ is adopted in FSN but hardly makes sense in the context. — [5-6] ilt er standa fram ‘it is no good entering’: Lit. ‘it is bad to step forward’. The inf. marker at ‘to’ (‘it is no good to …’) that might be expected to precede the inf. standa is not present here, presumably for metrical reasons. Cf. the second Note to st. 1/5, 8, above. — [5] baugum ‘with rings’: CPB and Rafn (FSN) retain (m. acc. pl. or gen. pl.) bauga, giving little sense in the context; Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891), Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ) emend to baugi (dat. sg.) ‘ring’; all other eds, including the present, emend to dat. pl. baugum ‘rings’; and all eds (other than those of CPB and FSN) take baugi/baugum as qualified by the adj. brandrauðum ‘fire-red’ in l. 6, which formally could be either m. dat. sg. or dat. pl. Kock (NN §3181) defends the pl. reading here on the grounds, first, that <u> is more likely than <i> to have given rise to the <a> found in 1824b’s reading bauga; second, that the conventional attribution in poetry of the adj. rauðr ‘red’ to the noun hringr ‘ring’ occurs more often in the pl. than in the sg.; and third, that the pl. reading is consistent with the hermenn pl. ‘soldiers’ and the fjölð hringa ‘multitude of rings’ mentioned in ll. 2 and 4 respectively. — [7-8]: The meaning is literally: ‘I know very many kings (to be) dead, when wealth lives’, and the construction acc. and inf. with the inf. vera ‘be’ omitted. Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson (Nj 1875-89, II, 17-19, n. 16) offer two possible interpretations of these lines: first: ‘I know of many a king whose wealth is his monument’, i.e. who is remembered more for his wealth than for his prowess or generosity; and second: ‘I know of many a king who died leaving wealth behind him’, i.e. at the height of his prosperity. They prefer the former interpretation, seeing the lines as contrasting semantically with Hávm 76/1, 4-6 (NK 29): Deyr fé …; enn orðztírr | deyr aldregi, | hveim er sér góðan getr ‘Cattle [i.e. riches] die …; but the good reputation of one who achieves it never dies’. Most who have offered a translation have preferred the former interpretation, and it is perhaps the likelier: Ragnarr may be saying here that if he invades with only limited resources (see the Context above) and is defeated and killed, then he will not be accused after death of having hoarded riches during his lifetime.

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. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Nj 1875-89 = Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson. 1875-89. Njála: Udgivet efter gamle håndskrifter. Íslendingasögur udgivne efter gamle haandskrifter af Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-selskab 4. Copenhagen: Thiele.
5. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
7. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
8. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
9. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
10. 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.
11. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
12. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
13. Ragn 1944 = Eskeland, Severin, ed. and trans. 1944. Soga om Ragnar Lodbrok med Kråka-kvædet. Norrøne bokverk 16. 2nd ed. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget. [1st ed. 1914].
14. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
15. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
16. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
17. Internal references
18. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 23 April 2024)
19. Not published: do not cite ()
20. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 24 (Ragnarr loðbrók, Lausavísur 8)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 672.
21. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 25 (Kráka/Áslaug Sigurðardóttir, Lausavísur 8)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 675.