‘Lítill er missir í mínum ungum;
atvinna brestr okkur bæði.
Hafðir þú áður hæri útvegu*;
nægtir voru þá og nógar vistir.
‘Lítill missir er í ungum mínum; atvinna brestr okkur bæði. Áður hafðir þú hæri útvegu*; nægtir voru þá og nógar vistir.
‘There is little lacking in my young ones; sustenance fails for us both. Earlier you had better remedies; there was abundance then and plentiful provisions.
[6] útvegu*: útvegur Rask87ˣ
[6] útvegu* ‘remedies’: Taken here as m. acc. pl. either declined as a u-stem (see ANG §358.4), or as an a-stem with the later ending ‑u (see Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, II, 175). Both Jón Þorkelsson (1888; 1922-7) and Páll Eggert Ólason (1947) retain the ms. reading útvegur, which can only be construed as a (desyllabified) m. nom. sg. and makes no sense syntactically.