Anon Mhkv 3^III

Þjóð spyrr alt, þat er þrír menn vitu;
þeir hafa verr, er trygðum slitu;
ekki er því til eins manns skotit;
ýmsir hafa þau dœmi hlotit.
Hermðarorð munu hittask í;
heimult ák at glaupsa of því,
— nǫkkut varð hon sýsla of sik
svinneyg drós — hvé hon fór við mik.

Þjóð spyrr alt, þat er þrír menn vitu; þeir, er slitu trygðum, hafa verr; ekki er því skotit til eins manns; ýmsir hafa hlotit þau dœmi. Hermðarorð munu hittask í; heimult ák at glaupsa of því – hon varð nǫkkut sýsla of sik, svinneyg drós –, hvé hon fór við mik.

The world learns all that three people know; those who have broken sworn pledges come off worse; that is not aimed at any one person; several have had those experiences as their lot. Angry words shall be found here; I have the right to speak mouthfuls about that – she rather had to look after herself, the wise-eyed woman – how she treated me.

Mss: R(54v)

Readings: [8] svinneyg: ‘svineyg’ R

Editions: Skj AII, 131, Skj BII, 138-9, Skald II, 74, NN §3269; Möbius 1874, 3, Wisén 1886-9, I, 73.

Notes: [1]: Cf. Hávm 63/6 (NK 27): þióð veit, | ef þríro ‘the world knows if three do’; for other Old Norse-Icelandic examples of this proverb, see Ísl. Málsh.: þjóð. Several English versions of the adage exist; cf. Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (July 1735): ‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead’. Additional examples in Whiting and Wescott (1968: T248, T544). — [6] at glaupsa ‘to speak mouthfuls’: Lit. ‘to speak ironically, indecently about sth.’ (see LP: glaupsa and Heggstad et al. 2008: glaupsa). — [8] svinneyg drós ‘the wise-eyed woman’: An apparent apo koinou construction, to be taken with either the preceding or following clause. The emendation of ms. ‘svineyg’ was first suggested by Jón Sigurðsson; CPB II, 364 translates svín-eyg as ‘pigsney’ or ‘pig’s eye’, a northern version of ‘ox-eyed Juno’? English ‘pignsey’ (ME piggisnye ‘pig’s-eye’ or ‘piggy’s eye’) probably originated in children’s talk, or as a nursery endearment – or perhaps even a flower-name (OED: pigsney). Nevertheless, such a female epithet would be unprecedented in Old Norse (svín-words tend to be uncomplimentary or nautical), while the Old Norse adj. svinnr ‘wise, quick’ (alone or compounded) frequently describes women, especially in poetry. — [8] hon ‘she’: Wisén (1886-9, I, 73) deletes the pron. as extra-metrical.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Wisén, Theodor, ed. 1886-9. Carmina Norrœnæ: Ex reliquiis vetustioris norrœnæ poësis selecta, recognita, commentariis et glossario instructa. 2 vols. Lund: Ohlsson.
7. 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.
8. OED = Murray, J. A. H. et al., eds. 1884-1928. The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon. 2nd edn 1989. Simpson, J. A. and E. S. C. Weiner, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9. Ísl. Málsh. = Bjarni Vilhjálmsson and Óskar Halldórsson, eds. 1979. Íslenzkir málshættir. 2nd edn. Reykjavík: Almenna Bókafélagið.
10. Möbius, Theodor. 1874. ‘Malshatta-kvædi’. ZDP Ergänzungsband, 3-73, 615-16.
11. Internal references
12. Not published: do not cite ()