Hætta verðr á hættu,
hæting ef böl rætir;
ást er nær að næra;
nú er vær konan færi.
Skeind tekr æðrin æðaz;
æðr deyr, þá er br …
Hætta verðr á hættu, ef hæting rætir böl; nær er að næra ást; nú er vær konan færi. Skeind æðrin tekr æðaz; æðr deyr, þá er br …
To take risks leads to danger, if threatening plants misfortune; it is better to nourish love; now placid women are fewer. The scratched vein begins to become angry; the eider duck dies when …
[5] æðrin ‘the vein’: Ms. W has ‘æðr enn’, where ‘enn’ could be read as a suffixed def. art., as here and by Björn Magnússon Ólsen, or the adv. enn ‘yet, still’ (though, as we do not know the conclusion of l. 6, this is hypothetical). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) emends to æðr at [œðask] lit. ‘vein to become angry’ and is followed in this by Kock (Skald). The poet is almost certainly using the noun æðr in two senses, ‘vein’ and ‘eider duck’, the first sense in l. 5, the second in l. 6. This homonym appears to have been a popular one among Icelandic poets; cf. Gestumbl Heiðr 35/3VIII (Heiðr 82) and Anon Gát 1/5.