Menn sá ek þá, er mjök ala
öfund um annars hagi;
blóðgar rúnir váru á brjósti þeim
merkðar meinliga.
Ek sá menn þá, er mjök ala öfund um hagi annars; blóðgar rúnir váru merkðar meinliga á brjósti þeim.
I saw men then who greatly nourish envy of another’s affairs; bloody runes were painfully marked on their breasts [lit. breast].
[3] um hagi annars ‘of, concerning another’s affairs’: If hagi is regarded as dat. sg., the phrase is grammatically aberrant, for um in the sense ‘of, concerning’ takes the acc., not the dat. Some eds (e.g. Skj B, Skald) emend to af, presumably assuming an earlier scribal confusion between original af and the prep. of, which is replaced by um in later mss. Here, however, hagi is judged to be acc. pl., so um has been retained.