Glúmr Gráf 1I/2 — mildinga ‘of princes’
Hlýði! Hapta beiðis
hefk mildinga gildi;
því biðjum vér þagnar,
þegna tjón at fregnum.
Hlýði! Hefk gildi beiðis hapta mildinga; því biðjum vér þagnar, at fregnum tjón þegna.
Listen! I begin the banquet of the ruler of the gods [= Óðinn > POETRY] of princes; we [I] ask for silence because we [I] have heard of the loss of the man.
readings
[2] mildinga: mildi W
notes
[2] mildinga ‘of princes’: (a) The gen. pl. mildinga is retained here and by Faulkes (SnE 1998, I, 12, 162, II, 356). There are parallels in prose to the use of gen. to refer to the subject of poetry, e.g. í kvæðum hans ‘in poetry about him’, cited from Egils saga in the Introduction above. Mildinga ‘of princes’ would not literally apply to the poem as it survives, with its strong focus on Haraldr, but it could be taken as a pl. for sg. referring to Haraldr as its subject, or perhaps generally to ‘princes’ as the natural subject of poetry. Faulkes (SnE 1998, I, 162) takes mildinga as a possible indication that the poem is ‘addressed to an assembly of rulers (or at least to more than one of the dead king’s brothers)’; cf. Fidjestøl (1982, 91, 230). (b) Finnur Jónsson in Skj B and Kock in Skald emend to the nom. pl. mildingar and construe it with hlýði, hence ‘let the princes hear!’. However, reading mildingar goes against all mss and produces an awkward word order.