Anon 732b 1III/3 — hryggbrot ‘the refusal’
Meyjar bað men-Týr
mætrar; sá er fágiætr;
hljótr fekk við hryggbrot
hásætrs votar nætr.
Krafti var ok konu sviftr
kauði; var hann þess trauðr;
slík gjöraz mál mjó
mærðar í skaup færð.
Men-Týr – sá er fágiætr – bað mætrar meyjar; hljótr hásætrs fekk votar nætr við hryggbrot. Kauði var sviftr krafti ok konu; hann var trauðr þess; slík mjó mál gjöraz færð í skaup mærðar.
The Týr <god> of the neck-ring [MAN] – he’s a rare one – asked for [the hand of] a splendid girl; the receiver of the rowing-bench [SEAFARER] had wet nights on account of the refusal. The wretch was deprived of strength and the woman; he was averse to this; such slight affairs get mocked in verse.
notes
[3] hryggbrot ‘rejection’: Lit. ‘back-breaking’. This is an unusual medieval occurrence of an expression well known in Modern Icelandic, referring to the rejection of a lover or suitor (Finnur Jónsson 1886a, 192; Mörður Árnason 2010: hryggbrot; cf. CVC: hryggbrotinn ‘broken-backed’). Here the expression sustains the polysemy of the stanza by simultaneously signifying the figurative hurt inflicted on the suitor, and the toil of the seaman, bent in physical activity (on which see further Note to l. 4 below). Cf. l. 5, which associates the outcomes of the man’s rejection and his nocturnal exertions: var sviftr krafti og konu ‘[He] was deprived of strength and the woman’.