Erat sem ekkja
á þik vili drekka,
björt baugvara
biði nær fara.
Sölt eru augu,
sitkak í laugu;
bálskorð arma,
bítr mér í hvarma.
Erat sem ekkja vili drekka á þik, björt baugvara biði fara nær. Augu eru sölt, sitkak í laugu; arma bálskorð, bítr mér í hvarma.
It it not as if a woman would want to drink to you, [or that] a bright ring-bearer [WOMAN] would ask [you] to come close. [My] eyes are salty, I am not sitting in a bath; prop of the fire of arms [(lit. ‘fire-prop of arms’) GOLD > WOMAN], my eye-lids are stinging.
[6] sitkak (‘sitka ek’): so 568ˣ, ‘ef soka’ 510, ‘sickiu’ 27ˣ, sikkuð papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ
[6] sitkak ‘I am not sitting’: Both Skj B and Skald and this edn adopt 568ˣ’s sitkak ‘I am not sitting [in a bath]’. The B redaction mss read sikkuð ‘sunken (?)’ which may possibly be a form of the p. p. of an unrecorded *sikka ‘sink’ (cf. Falk 1890, 74, who suggests a parallel with Norwegian dialect sikka ‘sink’). However, this interpretation then requires laug to be understood in the extended sense of ‘salt water, sea’.