Anon Eirm 4^I

‘Heimsku mæla *         skalat inn horski Bragi,
        þó at þú vel hvat vitir:
fyr Eireki glymr,         es hér mun inn koma
        jǫfurr í Óðins sali.

‘Inn horski Bragi skalat mæla * heimsku, þó at þú vitir vel hvat: glymr fyr Eireki, es mun koma hér inn, jǫfurr í sali Óðins.

‘The wise Bragi must not talk nonsense, though you know well why: the clangour is made for Eiríkr, who must be coming in here, a prince into Óðinn’s residence.

Mss: 761bˣ(105v); FskAˣ(37), 52ˣ(14v-15r), 301ˣ(13r) (Fsk)

Readings: [1] mæla *: mæla kvað Óðinn all    [2] skalat: skalt þú all    [4] Eireki: Eiríkr all

Editions: Skj AI, 175, Skj BI, 165, Skald I, 89; Fsk 1902-3, 29 (ch. 7), ÍF 29, 78 (ch. 8); Möbius 1860, 231, Gordon 1957, 149, Jón Helgason 1968, 22.

Context: As for st. 1 (Fsk).

Notes: [1] mæla * heimsku ‘talk nonsense’: The speaker is Óðinn. The phrase identifying him as such in the mss, however, is extrametrical and is omitted here; see Introduction to the poem. It seems that the heimsku ‘nonsense, folly’ Óðinn imputes to the normally wise Bragi is his failure to recognise the newcomer, though the details of the text are difficult (see Notes below). — [2] skalat ‘must not’: So Holthausen (1896) and Skj B (after Árni Magnússon’s correction in 761bˣ). The þú of the mss is retained by Möbius (1860), Fsk 1902-3, Jón Helgason (1968), and ÍF 29, but if skalt is a misreading of skalat, most likely þú is a scribal addition. Kershaw (1922, 97-8), like some others, retains skalt þú and translates, ‘Surely thou art talking folly’. Hofmann (1955, 46-8) offers a similar analysis, assuming future meaning for skalt on the basis of influence from OE sculan. Lindquist (1929, 10) retains þú and takes ll. 1-3 as a question. — [3] þó at ‘though’: Möbius (1860) and Skj B emend to þvít ‘because’; so also Gordon (1957, 245), who translates, ‘For you well know all about it’. Yet this seems unnecessary, and use of the subj. vitir ‘know’ would be unmotivated after þvít. — [3] vitir vel hvat ‘you know well why’: The thought seems to be that Bragi knows, or should know, what the commotion is about. See LP: 2. (*hvar eller *hver af hveR), hvat 3 for hvat in the sense ‘why’. It could alternatively mean ‘everything’, and is interpreted thus in LP: 2. (*hvar eller *hver af hveR), hvat 4. Hofmann (1955, 48) reads an otherwise unattested cpd velhvat, comparing OE welhwæt ‘everything’. — [4] Eireki ‘Eiríkr’: Eirekr is the earlier form of the name Eiríkr, which is secured by rhyme on snekk- in Gsind Hákdr 7/8. The emendation to dat. sg. -i was made by Árni in 761bˣ and is almost universally approved. Sahlgren (1927-8, I, 19) would emend to æirike’r, normalised Eiríki es (so also Lindquist 1929, 10), hence fyr Eiríki es glymr ‘the clangour is for/announces Eiríkr’, with glymr taken as a m. noun rather than 3rd pers. sg. pers. indic. of glymja ‘resound’, as here.

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. 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. Fsk 1902-3 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1902-3. Fagrskinna: Nóregs kononga tal. SUGNL 30. Copenhagen: Møller.
6. Hofmann, Dietrich. 1955. Nordisch-englische Lehnbeziehungen der Wikingerzeit. BA 14. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
7. ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum; Fagrskinna—Nóregs konungatal. Ed. Bjarni Einarsson. 1985.
8. Möbius, Theodor. 1860. Edda Sæmundar hins fróða. Mit einem Anhang bisher ungedruckter Gedichte. Leipzig: Hinrichs.
9. Holthausen, Ferdinand. 1896. Altisländisches Lesebuch. Weimar: Emil Felber.
10. Kershaw, Nora, ed. and trans. 1922. Anglo-Saxon and Norse Poems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11. Gordon, E. V. 1957. An Introduction to Old Norse. 2nd edn rev. A. R. Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12. Lindquist, Ivar. 1929. Norröna lovkväden från 800 och 900 talen. I: Förslag till restituerad täxt jämte översättning. Lund: Gleerup.
13. Jón Helgason, ed. 1968. Skjaldevers. 3rd edn. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
14. Sahlgren, Jöran. 1927-8. Eddica et Scaldica. Fornvästnordiska studier I-II. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
15. Internal references
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Fagrskinna’ 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=56> (accessed 27 April 2024)