Byskup, heyr á bæran
bragþátt gǫfugs máttar.
Byskup, heyr á bæran bragþátt gǫfugs máttar.
Bishop, listen to the appropriate strand of praise of glorious power.
[2] gǫfugs máttar ‘of glorious power’: This epithet could qualify byskup ‘bishop’ (l. 1) (so SnE 1848-87), but Snorri could have used the phrase to extol the qualities of his own poetry rather than the power of Guðmundr (so Skj B and, apparently, Skald), whose grip on the see of Hólar was tenuous. Finnur Jónsson (TGT 1927, 95, following Björn Magnússon Ólsen in TGT 1884, 184) later believed that the phrase qualified something mentioned in the next two, now lost lines, which is also possible.