StarkSt Vík 15^VIII (Gautr 23)

Ok á síðu         sverði beitti
mér öflugr         fyr mjöðm ofan,
en í aðra         atgeir lagði
köldum broddi,         svá at á kafi yddi;
þau sér merki         á mér gróin.

Ok öflugr beitti sverði á síðu mér fyr ofan mjöðm, en lagði atgeir í aðra köldum broddi, svá at yddi á kafi; sér þau merki gróin á mér.

And the powerful one thrust his sword into my side above one hip and plunged his halberd into the other with its cold point, so that it penetrated right through [me]; those scars are visible healed on me.

Mss: 590b-cˣ(4v), 152(199ra) (Gautr)

Readings: [8] at: om. 152;    yddi: stóð 152    [9] sér: so 152, sér þú 590b‑cˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 326-7, Skj BII, 346, Skald II, 186-7; FSN 3, 24, Gautr 1900, 21, FSGJ 4, 20-1; Edd. Min. 40.

Context: As for Gautr 21.

Notes: [All]: A stanza of ten lines rather than the standard eight. Edd. Min. and Skj B place the last two lines in parentheses. — [3]: This line is in kviðuháttr. — [3] öflugr ‘the powerful one’: The reading of both mss. Skj B and Skald emend to öflugri ‘more powerful’, doubtless to produce a more regular line, and construe it with mér ‘more powerful than me’. — [8] yddi á kafi ‘it penetrated right through [me]’: The idiom ydda á kafi means that a weapon goes right through its victim and comes out the other side. Yddi is the lectio difficilior beside 152’s stóð ‘stood, was’. — [9] sér ‘are visible’: Understood as the 3rd pers. sg. of the pres. indic. of sjá ‘see’ used impersonally. It is also possible (and the scribe of 590b-cˣ must have thought so) that sér is 2nd pers. sg. pres. indic. ‘you see’.

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. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
6. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
7. Gautr 1900 = Ranisch, Wilhelm, ed. 1900. Die Gautrekssaga in zwei Fassungen. Palaestra 11. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.
8. Internal references
9. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gautreks saga 21 (Starkaðr gamli Stórvirksson, Víkarsbálkr 13)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 266.