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.
[8] vígtôr ‘slaying-tears’: Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) takes the sense of the cpd to be ‘tears for the slain one’; Kock (NN §1120; 1929, 17) takes it to be ‘bitter tears’. In Flat it is said after this stanza, Uigtár kollum ver þat sagde Sighuatr er ver fellum vid slik tidende ‘“Slaying-tears” is what we call that,’ said Sigvatr, ‘which we shed at such news.’ A further possibility is some such sense as ‘battle tears’ or ‘warrior’s tears’ (as perhaps suggested by ÍF 28’s tár, sprottið af vígahug ‘tears springing from a warlike mood’), since the stanza establishes a contrast between what is perceived as a trivial and effete loss and manly grief for a lord.