Hyggjum at, áðr heitim,
at hefnt megi verða;
látum ýmsu illu
Agnars bana fagna.
Skjótum húf á hrannir,
höggum ís fyrir barði;
sjám á hitt, hvé snekkjur
snemst vér fáim búnar.
Hyggjum at, áðr heitim, at hefnt megi verða; látum bana Agnars fagna ýmsu illu. Skjótum húf á hrannir, höggum ís fyrir barði; sjám á hitt, hvé vér fáim búnar snekkjur snemst.
Let us think before we promise [anything], so that vengeance may be achieved; let us allow Agnarr’s slayer to encounter various misfortunes. Let us thrust the hulk onto the waves, let us hack away the ice before the prow; let us see to this: how we can get the ships prepared as soon as may be.
[7] hvé: hverr Hb
[7-8] hvé … vér … ‘how … we …’: The Hb reading of these lines, which has hverr m. nom. sg. ‘who, which (one’), for hvé ‘how’ and corrects vér ‘we’ to ‘varr’ i.e. várr ‘our’, ‘of us’, m. nom. sg., see the Readings, above, would produce the translation ‘which (one) of us’, with the 1st pers. pl. poss. adj. várr ‘of us’ used in a partitive sense, cf. Finnur’s normalised text and translation, Hb 1892-6, 461.