Þul Women 1III/1 — Braut ‘away’
Braut es svarri ok sæta;
sveimar rýgr ok feima;
brúðrs í fǫr með fljóði;
fatk drós ok man kjósa.
Þekkik sprund ok sprakka;
sparik við hæl at mæla;
firrumk snót ok svarra;
svífr mér langt frá vífi.
Braut es svarri ok sæta; rýgr ok feima sveimar; brúðrs í fǫr með fljóði; fatk kjósa drós ok man. Þekkik sprund ok sprakka; sparik við hæl at mæla; firrumk snót ok svarra; mér svífr langt frá vífi.
The haughty woman and the grass-widow are away; the mighty woman and the lass are wandering about; the bride has gone travelling with the matron; I did choose the girl and the maid. I catch sight of the dame and lively one; I refrain from talking with the widow; I am shunning snót and the haughty woman; I am drifting far away from the wife.
readings
[1] Braut: brottu U
notes
[1] braut es svarri ok sæta ‘the haughty woman and the grass-widow are away’: The U variant sværa ‘mother-in-law’ for sæta ‘grass-widow’ is probably not correct, because it transfers the skothending from the initial position in the line (-aut : ‑æt-) to the second stressed syllable (svarri), thus violating the strict order in the distribution of rhyming syllables in the odd lines of this stanza. That may support Konráð Gíslason’s assumption (Nj 1875-89, II, 900) that svarri replaced another designation for ‘haughty woman’, namely, svanni ‘lady’ (thus the original reading of the line could have been Braut es svanni ok sæta). Otherwise it is impossible to explain why the former heiti appears twice in the same stanza (cf. svarri l. 7: snót ok svarra).