Anon (FoGT) 35III/8 — hauðri ‘the land’
Píndr reis upp með anda
angrleystu herfangi;
hlýrna gramr til himna
heim sótti guð dróttin*.
Sendi ástaranda
alls hirðandi virðum;
sá kemr drótt að dæma
dauða lífs á hauðri.
Píndr reis upp með angrleystu herfangi anda; gramr hlýrna sótti guð dróttin* heim til himna. Hirðandi alls sendi virðum ástaranda; sá kemr að dæma drótt dauða á hauðri lífs.
Tortured, he rose up with the sorrow-liberated booty of souls; the prince of heavenly bodies [= God (= Christ)] came home to the Lord God in the heavens. The carer of everything [= God] sent the spirit of love to men; he will come to judge the host of the dead on the land of life.
notes
[7-8] sá kemr að dæma drótt dauða á hauðri lífs ‘he will come to judge the host of the dead on the land of life’: This edn follows the interpretation of these lines offered by Kock (NN §3164) as the only one that respects the couplet structure of the stanza and also makes theological sense. There is no doubt that these lines allude to the Last Judgement, in which case ‘on the land of life’ may mean ‘in Paradise’. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) construed lífs á hauðri (l. 8) with hirðandi alls (l. 6) to produce the sense ‘the guardian of all life on earth’, but this violates the couplet-based syntax of the stanza and is therefore unlikely to be correct. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884) emended the text by adding ok between dauða and lífs in l. 8 (sá kemr at dæma drótt dauða ok lífs á hauðri ‘he will come to judge the host of death [the dead] and life [the living] on earth’), but this produces an unmetrical line and rather strained syntax, and must also be rejected.