Roberta Frank (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Málsháttakvæði 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1217.
Ekki hefk með flimtun farit;
fullvel ættak til þess varit;
yrkja kann ek vánu verr;
vita þykkisk þat maðrinn hverr.
Stolit væri mér ekki ór ætt,
jafnan þótt ek kvæða slétt;
róa verðr fyrst á it næsta nes;
nǫkkut ættak kyn til þess.
Hefk ekki farit með flimtun; fullvel ættak varit til þess; kann ek yrkja vánu verr; hverr maðrinn þykkisk vita þat. Ekki væri stolit mér ór ætt, þótt ek kvæða jafnan slétt; verðr fyrst róa á it næsta nes; ættak nǫkkut kyn til þess.
‘I have not gone in for lampoons; full well would I have had excuse for that; I can compose more rudely than you’d expect; every man thinks he knows it. Nothing would be stolen from my patrimony, even if I should always recite smoothly; one has to row first toward the nearest headland; I would have some pedigree for that. ’
[5-8]: After boasting of his inadequacy (I can compose vánu verr lit. ‘worse than expected’), the speaker illustrates his ineptitude with two apparently imperfect rhymes (ætt : slétt and nes : þess).
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.
†[...]† hefk með flimtun farit;
fullvel ættak til þess varit;
yrkja kann ek vánu †[...]†;
vita þykkisk þat maðrinn hverr.
Stolit væri mér ekki ór ætt,
jafnan þótt ek kvæða slétt;
róa verðr fyrst á it næsta nes;
nǫkkut ættak kyn til þess.
[...] hefi ec með flimtvn farit fvllvel ætta ek til þes varit yrkia kaɴ ek vano | [...] vita þyckiz þat maðriɴ hverr stolit væri mer ecki or ætt iafnan þott ek qveþa slétt | roa verþr fyrst ahit næsta nes nokqvot ætta ek kyn til þes . |
(VEÞ)
Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], A. [1]. Málsháttakvæði 2: AII, 131, BII, 138, Skald II, 74, NN §§2581A, 3268; Möbius 1874, 3, Wisén 1886-9, I, 73.
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