Sett hefr sína dróttar
sigrstoð konungr roðna
blikmeiðundum blóði
bauga láðs fyr augu.
Sjá má hverr í heimi
hnossa brjótr, á krossi
dyggr hvé sinn faðm seggjum
sólstéttar gramr réttir.
Konungr dróttar hefr sett sína sigrstoð roðna blóði fyr augu láðs bauga blik meiðundum. Hverr brjótr hnossa í heimi má sjá, hvé dyggr gramr sólstéttar á krossi réttir seggjum faðm sinn.
The king of the host [RULER = Christ] has set his victory-post [CROSS], reddened with blood, before the eyes of harmers of the radiance of the land of rings [(lit. ‘radiance-harmers of the land of rings’) ARM > GOLD > GENEROUS MEN]. Each breaker of treasures [GENEROUS MAN] in the world may see how the faithful king of the sun’s path [SKY/HEAVEN > = God (= Christ)] on the Cross extends his embrace to men.
[2] sigrstoð ‘victory-post [CROSS]’: Cf. -stólpi ‘pillar’ 41/3. The kenning (cited by Meissner, 432) may well be a translation of Lat. trop(h)aeum ‘victory memorial’ (originally a tree trunk bedecked with captured arms), a common appellative of the Cross. (Cf. the Gk cognate σταυρου̂ τρόπαιον ‘trophy of the Cross’ in Eusebius’ account of Constantine’s dream, by which sign the emperor was instructed to conquer [De vita Constantini I, 28 in Winkelmann 1991, 30]. See, e.g., Fortunatus’ Pange lingua, st. 2: et super crucis trophaeo dic triumphum nobilem ‘and over the trophy of the Cross, sound the noble triumph’ (Bulst 1956, 128), in which trophaeo alliterates (with triumphum) just as does sigrstoð (with sétt and sína). (In his Genesis commentary, Alcuin also refers to crucis trophaeum. Alcuinus, Epistolae XCVII, col. 307.) On the early history of the Cross as trophaeum, see Reijners 1965, 192-3.