Tarrin Wills and Stefanie Gropper (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Hugsvinnsmál 41’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 385-6.
Sinni optar heittu eigi seggjum gjöf,
þeirri er þú veita vilt;
símálugs orð þykkja snotrum hal
vindi lík vera.
Heittu eigi sinni optar seggjum gjöf, þeirri er þú vilt veita; snotrum hal þykkja símálugs orð vera lík vindi.
Do not promise people more than once the gift that you intend to give; to a wise man the words of a long-winded man seem like the wind.
Mss: 1199ˣ(73r), 723aˣ(79), 696XV(1v) (ll. 2-6), 401ˣ(1v), 624(142) (ll. 1-3)
Readings: [2] heittu eigi seggjum: heit eigi sömu 723aˣ, skaltu eigi heita 624 [3] þeirri er: ef 723aˣ; veita vilt: at öðrum átt 624 [4] símálugs: ‘[...]r’ 696XV [5] þykkja: þykkir 401ˣ
Editions: Skj AII, 177, Skj BII, 192, Skald II, 100; Hallgrímur Scheving 1831, 14, Gering 1907, 12, Tuvestrand 1977, 93, Hermann Pálsson 1985, 54.
Notes: [All]: Lat. parallel: (Dist. I, 25) Quod praestare potes, ne bis promiseris ulli, / ne sis ventosus, dum vis bonus esse videris ‘That which you are able to lend do not promise twice to anyone, do not be a windbag if you want to seem to be a good man’. This st. is parallelled in Hsv 29. — [1-3]: The first version (i.e. 624) only consists of these ll., but has a similar text to ll. 4-6 in its version of st. 29/4-6. The ll. here also read somewhat differently from the other mss: Sinni optar | skaltu eigi heita gjöf | þeirri er þú at öðrum átt ‘You must not promise more than once a gift which you have due from others’.
Use the buttons at the top of the page to navigate between stanzas in a poem.
The text and translation are given here, with buttons to toggle whether the text is shown in the verse order or prose word order. Clicking on indiviudal words gives dictionary links, variant readings, kennings and notes, where relevant.
This is the text of the edition in a similar format to how the edition appears in the printed volumes.
This view is also used for chapters and other text segments. Not all the headings shown are relevant to such sections.