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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Þjsk Lv 5I/5 — Enn ‘But’

Hrollir hugr minn illa;
hefr drengr skaða fengit
sér * á sléttri eyri,
svarri, báts ok knarrar.
Enn, þeims upp réð brenna
ǫldu fíl fyr skaldi,
hverr veit, nema kol knarrar
kǫld fýsi mik gjalda?

Hugr minn hrollir illa; drengr hefr fengit sér * skaða báts ok knarrar á sléttri eyri, svarri. Enn hverr veit, nema kǫld kol knarrar fýsi mik gjalda þeims réð brenna upp fíl ǫldu fyr skaldi?

My mind shivers badly; the man has [I have] suffered damage to boat and ship on the level gravel-spit, lady. But who knows but that the cold coals of the ship might urge me to repay the one who had the elephant of the wave [SHIP] burned up [as an act] against the skald [me]?

readings

[5] Enn þeims: hinn er Flat, hann er 4867ˣ, 563aˣ

notes

[5] enn ... þeims ‘but ... the one who’: The emendation of ms. hinn er or hann er to en(n) þeims adopted here was proposed by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and followed by most subsequent eds. It is necessary since the line is evidently corrupt, as it lacks one alliterative stave and is syntactically unsatisfactory, and an original conj. enn could have been misunderstood as the article hinn. With the Flat reading hinn er (normalised es) ‘that one who’ the helmingr forms two syntactically viable couplets, but the rel. hinn es has no credible antecedent. It cannot be drengr ‘man, fellow, warrior’ (l. 2), since that is the man who suffered damage, whereas ll. 5-6 refer to the one who burned the ship. The variant hann er/es ‘he who’ is little better since it produces a subordinate clause without a main one.

grammar

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