Hept vas lítt — á lopti
liðu ǫrvar framm gǫrva —
brodda flaug, áðr bauga
brjótendr skyti spjótum.
Orð vas hitt, at harðast,
hvarkunnt, fyr lǫg sunnan,
mest, í malma gnaustan
minn dróttinn framm sótti.
Flaug brodda vas lítt hept; ǫrvar liðu gǫrva framm á lopti, áðr brjótendr bauga skyti spjótum. Hitt vas mest hvarkunnt orð, at dróttinn minn sótti framm harðast í gnaustan malma fyr sunnan lǫg.
The flight of points was little hindered; arrows travelled precisely forward in the sky, before breakers of rings [GENEROUS MEN] shot spears. That was the most widely-known report, that my lord pressed forward the hardest in the clashing of metal weapons [BATTLE] south over the sea.
[All]: The parallelism of lopt ‘sky, air’ in the first helmingr and lǫg ‘sea’ in the second (lopt ok lǫg is a common phrase in prose, with the connotation ‘everywhere’), and repeated use of framm ‘forward’, gives the stanza a powerful sense of co-ordinated, sequenced, all-encompassing action.