Gamlkan Has 64VII/2 — Harmsól ‘Harmsól’
Létum hróðr, þanns heitir
Harmsól, fetilkjóla
fyr hugprúða hríðar
herðendr borinn verða.
Mér biði hverr, es heyrir,
heimspenni, brag þenna,
œski-Þrór ok eirar
unnrǫðla miskunnar.
Létum hróðr, þanns heitir Harmsól, verða borinn fyr hugprúða herðendr hríðar fetilkjóla. Hverr œski-Þrór unnrǫðla, es heyrir þenna brag, biði mér heimspenni miskunnar ok eirar.
We [I] caused the praise-poem, which is called ‘Harmsól’, to be borne before strong-minded hardeners of the storm of strap-ships [SHIELDS > BATTLE > WARRIORS]. May each craving-Þrór <= Óðinn> of wave-suns [GOLD > MAN] who hears this poem, ask the world-clasper [= God] for mercy and compassion for me.
notes
[2] Harmsól: Lit. ‘sorrow-sun’. The title of the poem draws together many of its central themes. Harmsól may be taken as a kenning for Christ, whose harmr ‘pain, injury’ is the subject of the poem’s central meditation, and who is apostrophised throughout the poem in kennings referring to his mastery of the weather and his lordship over the heavenly halls of the sun. At another level, the poem itself, as a public act of penance and a meditation on the grace of God, has acted as a ‘sun’, dissipating the clouds of the poet’s own harmr ‘sorrow’, his grief and shame at his own sinfulness. See further Paasche 1914a, 116-18.