Sigv Lv 20I/4 — of ‘too dearly’
Fúss læzk maðr, ef missir
meyjar faðms, at deyja;
-keypt es ôst, ef eptir,
of-, látinn skal gráta.
En fullhugi fellir
flóttstyggr, sás varð dróttin,
várt torrek lízk verra,
vígtôr, konungs ôrum.
Maðr læzk fúss at deyja, ef missir faðms meyjar; ôst es ofkeypt, ef skal gráta eptir látinn. En flóttstyggr fullhugi, sás varð dróttin, fellir vígtôr; torrek várt lízk verra ôrum konungs.
A man claims he is ready to die if he misses the embrace of a maiden; love is too dearly bought if one must weep for the departed. But the flight-shunning man full of courage who has lost his lord sheds slaying-tears; our grievous loss seems worse to the servants of the king.
readings
[4] of‑: so all others, ‘ob‑’ Holm2
notes
[4] of- ‘too’: (a) The present interpretation assumes that of ‘too’ and keypt ‘bought’ (l. 3) form a cpd by tmesis (so also Skj B). (b) Kock (NN §679), objecting to this separation of elements, proposes that the word is actually an adverbial case-form of the noun óf ‘excess’, or that it should be gen. ófs, in either event producing the same meaning. (c) The eds of ÍF 28 and Hkr 1991, as well as Jón Skaptason (1983, 204), form with of a cpd oflátinn ‘the ostentatious person’, as in nearly all the mss, and take ef oflátinn skal eptir gráta to mean ‘if the ostentatious person must weep after (the death of his wife)’. Some such interpretation must lie behind the context offered by Snorri. But the use of the suffixed def. art. is not likely to be what Sigvatr intended, and omission of an object meaning ‘the departed one’ for eptir … gráta ‘weep after’ is awkward. In CVC: oflátinn the word is cited from Sigvatr with the meaning ‘much lamented’.