Anon Óldr 2I/6 — es ‘than whom’
Mætr hefr minna látit
mik stólkonungr sólar
snjallr, an sómði þolli
sverðéls, bragar verðan.
Þó vilk Þróttar skýja,
þeim es engr vas beima,
eldveitanda ítrum,
alfríðri, lof smíða.
Mætr, snjallr stólkonungr sólar hefr látit mik verðan minna bragar, an sómði þolli sverðéls. Þó vilk smíða lof ítrum Þróttar skýja eldveitanda, þeim es engr beima vas alfríðri.
The excellent, valiant emperor of the sun [= God] has made me worthy of lesser poetry than befitted the fir-tree of the sword-storm [BATTLE > WARRIOR = Óláfr]. Nevertheless I will craft praise for the splendid offerer of the fire of the clouds of Þróttr <= Óðinn> [(lit. ‘fire-offerer of the clouds of Þróttr’) SHIELDS > SWORD > WARRIOR = Óláfr], the one than whom no-one among men was finer in all respects.
readings
[6] es: en Bb
notes
[6]: This line is very similar to HSt Rst 1/8. — [6] þeim es ‘the one than whom’: The second word in the ms. reads ‘en’, with a superscript abbreviation that is clearly a nasal bar with an extended serif, and this could be expanded as ‘enn’, normalised an ‘than’, hence alfríðri an ‘finer in all respects than’. However, þeim an ‘than whom’ would assume a rel. use of the demonstrative pron. þeim which would be unlikely in the C12th (see NS §261), so that ms. ‘en’ needs instead to be read as a relative. This entails emendation to er, normalised es (so Nj 1875-8, II, 944; Skj A prints er as the actual ms. reading). Alternatively the ms. reading could be normalised to en and assumed to be not so much a corruption requiring emendation as a scribal form of es (see NS §262).