Anon (TGT) 38^III

At kom gangandi,        þar es jǫfrar bǫrðusk;
helt hann upp hǫfði:        ‘hér es þér skattr, sultan.’

Gangandi kom at, þar es jǫfrar bǫrðusk; hann helt upp hǫfði: ‘hér es þér skattr, sultan.’

Walking, he arrived where the princes were fighting; he held up a head: ‘here’s treasure for you, sultan.’

Mss: A(8r), W(110) (TGT)

Readings: [3] hann: so W, om. A    [4] þér: so W, om. A

Editions: Skj AI, 598, Skj BI, 599, Skald I, 292; SnE 1818, 333, SnE 1848, 199, SnE 1848-87, 182-3, 426, TGT 1884, 31, 115, 234, TGT 1927, 86, 109.

Context: Cited as an example of sarcasmos (sarcasm), defined as (TGT 1927, 86-7) hatrs-full ok óvinulig spottan … Sarcasmos gerir annat yfirbragð máls en merking ‘malevolent and unfriendly mockery … Sarcasm creates a different appearance for the expression than [its true] meaning’.

Notes: [All]: It is unclear exactly how the half-stanza exemplifies sarcasm, perhaps by calling the severed head skattr ‘treasure, tribute’ or the address to the prince as ‘sultan’. — [All]: Donatus has an example of a military scene from Virgil (Fairclough 2000, 326-7; cf. Holtz 1981, 673): En agros et quam bello, Troiane, petisti, | Hesperiam metire iacens ‘See, Trojan, the fields and that Hesperia that you sought in war: lie there and measure them out!’. There is, however, insufficient similarity with our stanza to assert with any confidence that Óláfr composed it with the Latin example as a model. — [1] gangandi ‘walking’: The present reading as an adj. (pres. p. of the verb ganga ‘walk’) follows Skj B. Another possible reading is as a noun ‘wayfarer, traveller, walking one’ (cf. Hávm 132/7), hence ‘the traveller arrived’. — [3, 4] hann; þér ‘he; for you’: These words are supplied from W for metrical reasons. The first two lines indicate that the metre is málaháttr, but A lacks sufficient syllables in ll. 3-4. — [4] sultan: A loan word ultimately from Arabic. Finnur Jónsson (TGT 1927, 109) argues that the presence of this word means that it is unlikely that the half-stanza is old. The word occurs as the nickname of Nikolás sultan, King Sverrir’s maternal uncle (Sv chs 97, 108, ÍF 30, 150, 166; cf. ONP: sultan).

References

1. Bibliography
2. TGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
3. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
4. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
5. SnE 1848 = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1848. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, eða Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja landsins.
6. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
7. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
8. ÍF 30 = Sverris saga. Ed. Þorleifur Hauksson. 2007.
9. TGT 1927 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927b. Óláfr Þórðarson: Málhljóða- og málskrúðsrit. Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling. Det kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 13, 2. Copenhagen: Høst.
10. Fairclough, H. Rushton, trans. 2000. Virgil: Aeneid VII-XII; Appendix Vergiliana. Rev. G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11. SnE 1818 = Rask, Rasmus Kristian, ed. 1818a. Snorra Edda ásamt Skáldu og þarmeð fylgjandi ritgjörðum. Stockholm: Elmen.
12. Holtz, Louis, ed. 1981. Donat et la tradition de l’enseignement grammatical: Étude sur l’Ars Donari et sa diffusion (IVe-IXe siècle) et édition critique. Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique.
13. Internal references
14. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Sverris saga’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=2> (accessed 26 April 2024)
15. Not published: do not cite ()