Anon Pét 14^VII

‘Hvess leiti þið ljósir?’,
lofsælastur mælir
guð, en svöruðu síðan
sanngóðir menn þannveg:
‘Seg þinn bæ eða bygðir,
blíðr og nafnið fríða’;
vann þeim vísi þenna
vagna brautar fagnað.

‘Hvess leiti þið ljósir?’ mælir lofsælastur guð, en sanngóðir menn svöruðu síðan þannveg: ‘Seg blíðr þinn bæ eða bygðir og nafnið fríða’. {Vísi {brautar vagna}} vann þeim þenna fagnað.

‘Whom do you two fair men seek?’ says the most glorious God, and the truly good men then answered thus: ‘Be so kind as to tell your town or district and your glorious name’. {The king {of the path of the wagons}} [SKY/HEAVEN > = God (= Christ)] did them this favour.

Mss: 621(58r)

Editions: Skj AII, 502, Skj BII, 548, Skald II, 300, NN §1712A; Kahle 1898, 81.

Notes: [1] hvess leiti þið ‘whom do you two seek?’: Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) translates Hvad søger I ‘What do you seek’, cf. John I.38 Quid quaeritis ‘what do you seek?’. Support for the interpretation of hvess (ms. ‘huers’) as gen. sg. of hverr ‘who’ rather than hvað ‘what’ comes from the versions of John I.38 in Pétr 2/15 Hvern leitit þit? and Andr²A 354/31 Hvers leiti þit?, in both cases ‘Whom do you seek?’ — [2] lofsælastur ‘the most glorious’: Ms. ‘lofsælaztr’. Kock (NN §1712A) objects to Finnur Jónsson’s adoption of desyllabified -ur and proposes instead that a monosyllabic adv. (at Skald II, 300 þá) be inserted between lofsælastr and mælir to gain the extra syllable needed in the l. See Note to 4/2. — [3-6]: Cf. Pétr 2/15-16: Þeir svoruðu: ‘Þik, meistari, eða hvar byggvir þú’ ‘They answered: “You master, but where do you live?”’, John I.38: qui dixerunt ei rabbi, quod dicitur interpretatum magister, ubi habitas? ‘who said to him Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where dwellest thou?’ — [7-8] vísi brautar vagna ‘the king of the path of the wagons [SKY/HEAVEN > = God]’: The kenning brautar vagna contains a reference to the constellations of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, called vagn in ON and Charles’s Wain (i.e. ‘wagon, cart’) in English and Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, or Lesser Wain (cf. OED: wain sb., 2; wagon sb., 1b). See also st. 21/4.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.