Mundut þess, es þegnar
þróttharðan gram sóttu,
— ferk með lýða líði
landherðar — skǫp verða,
at mundjǫkuls myndi
margdýrr koma stýrir
— geta þykkjat mér gotnar
glíkligs — ór her slíkum.
Skǫp mundut verða þess, es þegnar sóttu þróttharðan gram — ferk með líði lýða landherðar —, at margdýrr stýrir mundjǫkuls myndi koma ór slíkum her; gotnar þykkjat mér geta glíkligs.
Fate would not have come to this, when retainers attacked the mightily tough lord — I deal with ale of the folk of the land-shoulder [ROCK > GIANTS > POETRY] —, that the magnificent controller of hand-icicle [SILVER > MAN] would escape [lit. come out of] such a force; men do not seem to me to talk of a likely thing.
[7] gotnar: ‘geitiar’ Bb
[7] gotnar ‘men’: Lit. ‘inhabitants of Gotland’ (AEW: goti, gotnar), but here, as usual in skaldic poetry, ‘men, warriors’. Snorri implausibly derives gotnar from the eponymous king Goti (see SnE 1998, I, 105; Kristensen 1907, 241; Note to Þul Manna 1/5III). — [7-8] gotnar þykkjat mér geta glíkligs ‘men do not seem to me to talk of a likely thing’: The reading gotnar þykkjask geta þess glíkligs ‘men think they guess this [as a] likely thing’ in the K transcripts is possible but, as Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (ÍF 26) observes, not as good as FskAˣ’s reading, especially in the context of the rest of the poem.