Gamlkan Has 53VII/5 — láta ‘cast’
Slík styrkja mik merki,
minn guð, … þinna,
þótt atferðin yrði
ór herfilig stórum,
leiptra hróts at láta
láðvaldr muni aldri
glaðr, ef glœpa iðrumk,
glóða mik fyr róða.
Slík merki þinna … styrkja mik, minn guð, þótt ór atferðin yrði stórum herfilig, at glaðr láðvaldr glóða hróts leiptra muni aldri láta mik fyr róða, ef iðrumk glœpa.
Such tokens of your … strengthen me, my God, even though our [my] behaviour were to become very shameful, that the glad ruler of the land of the fires of the roof of lightnings [(lit. ‘land-ruler of the fires of the roof of lightnings’) SKY/HEAVEN > HEAVENLY BODIES > SKY/HEAVEN > = God] will never cast me to the winds, if I repent of my sins.
notes
[5, 8] at láta fyr róða ‘to leave, cast to the winds, abandon’: Cf. the prayer to the Virgin preserved in HómÍsl 1872, 195: eige mic fyr róþa láta í náuþsyn miɴe ‘do not abandon me in my need’. The phrase is common in both verse and prose (cf. Fritzner: róði), and it is clear that the essential meaning is ‘to abandon’. Several different interpretations of róði have been offered, perhaps the most satisfactory being Finnur Jónsson’s suggestion (LP: róði) that róði should be understood as a heiti for the wind. This certainly renders the phrase at once vivid and accessible, and fits extremely well with the image-structure of Has.