Varla sýnisk alt, sem er,
*ýtum þeim, er bægir drer;
eigi at eins er í fǫgru fengr;
fundit mun, þat er reynt er lengr.
Ekki var þat forðum farald,
Finnan gat þó œrðan Harald,
hánum þótti sólbjǫrt sú,
slíks dœmi verðr mǫrgum nú.
Varla sýnisk alt, sem er, þeim *ýtum, er drer bægir; eigi at eins er fengr í fǫgru; mun fundit, þat er lengr er reynt. Ekki var þat farald forðum; Finnan gat þó Harald œrðan; hánum þótti sú sólbjǫrt; mǫrgum verðr nú dœmi slíks.
All seems hardly as it is to those men afflicted by eye-disease; not only in the beautiful is there gain; that shall come to light which is inquired into the longer. It wasn’t a malady in the old days; still, the Saami girl drove Haraldr out of his mind; to him she seemed bright as the sun; instances of such happen to many now.
[2] bægir drer: ‘bæg[...]er’ R, ‘bægir drers’ RFJ, ‘bægir drer?’ RJS
[2] er drer bægir ‘afflicted by eye-disease’: Lit. ‘whom eye-disease hinders’. Drer ‘cataract, eye-ailment’ is a terminus technicus, attested in poetry only here (see Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, II, 140-1; Møller-Christensen 1976, 642-3; AEW: drør). For bægja e-m ‘distress, hinder sby’, see ONP: bægja 2. Wisén (1886-9, I) could make no sense of the line and replaced it with eigi brýtr gæfumaðr gler ‘a lucky man does not break glass’.