Roberta Frank (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Málsháttakvæði 22’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1236.
Grandvarr skyldi inn góði maðr;
Gizurr varð at rógi saðr;
etja vildi jǫfrum saman;
ekki er mér at stúru gaman.
Kunna vildak sjá við snǫrum;
sjaldan, hykk, at gyggvi vǫrum;
vel hefr hinn, er sitr of sitt;
svartflekkótt er kvæði mitt.
Inn góði maðr skyldi grandvarr; Gizurr varð saðr at rógi; vildi etja jǫfrum saman; ekki er mér gaman at stúru. Vildak kunna sjá við snǫrum; hykk, at gyggvi sjaldan vǫrum; vel hefr hinn, er sitr of sitt; svartflekkótt er kvæði mitt.
The good man should be circumspect; Gizurr <= Óðinn> proved true in slander; he wanted to incite kings against each other; I have no delight in gloom. I would like to be able to avoid snares; I think the wary man is seldom startled; he comes off well who tends his own; black-flecked is my poem.
Mss: R(55r)
Readings: [1] Grandvarr: ‘[...]randvarr’ R, Grandvarr RFJ [8] ‑flekkótt: ‘‑flecko[…]’ R, ‘‑fleckott’ RFJ
Editions: Skj AII, 135, Skj BII, 143, Skald II, 77; Möbius 1874, 10, Wisén 1886-9, I, 75-6.
Notes: [2] Gizurr ‘Gizurr <= Óðinn>’: For this heiti for Óðinn, see also Notes to Refr Giz 3/2 and Þul Óðins 1/5. — [3]: On Óðinn’s self-described role as whetter, using the same formula as here, see Hárb 24/3 (NK 82): atta ec iǫfrom ‘I incited the chieftains’. See also RvHbreiðm Hl 45/8. — [6]: Cf. Hávm 6/6 (NK 18): sialdan verðr víti vorom ‘seldom does woe befall the wary’. — [6] gyggvi ‘is … startled’: This is 3rd pers. sg. pres. subj. of gyggva which, when construed impersonally with a dat. obj. (here, vǫrum ‘the wary man’) means ‘be startled, startles’. The word is attested in poetry only here and in ÞjJ Lv 1/8VIII (ÞJ 1) but occurs in religious prose where it collocates, as here, with the adj. varr ‘wary, cautious’. — [8] svartflekkótt ‘black-flecked’: Looking like a cow- or sheep-skin with unsightly dark spots; only here in poetry. This trisyllabic metrical heavyweight was no doubt intended by the poet to illustrate his rude art. See ONP: bláflekkóttr ‘black-flecked’.
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