Sigv Lv 8I/4 — lof ‘praise’
Eigi sôtuð ítrum,
Ívarr, meginfjarri,
orð þás ossum fœrðak
— at sóttisk lof — dróttni.
Þérs, alls hann réð hlýða
hróðr sínn, lofi þínu
— hljóðs hefk beitt á báða
bekki — vant at hnekkja.
Ívarr, eigi sôtuð meginfjarri ítrum, þás fœrðak orð dróttni ossum; lof sóttisk at. Þérs vant at hnekkja lofi þínu, alls hann réð hlýða hróðr sínn; hefk beitt hljóðs á báða bekki.
Ívarr, you did not sit very far from the glorious one when I conveyed words to our lord; praise rushed forth. For you it is inadvisable to reject praise of yourself, since he saw fit to listen to his encomium; I have requested a hearing from both benches.
notes
[4] lof sóttisk at ‘praise rushed forth’: (a) This reading takes sóttisk and lof, consecutive in the text, together and is based on the facts that m. v. sœkjask most commonly has the meaning ‘to advance’ (as applied to a piece of work), and transitive sœkja at means ‘rush at’. In this reading orð ‘words’ and færðak ‘I conveyed’ (both l. 3) are also taken together (so also Kock in Skald; NN §2480D). (b) The syntactic connections are reversed in the reading of Finnur Jónsson in Skj B, who forms an intercalary clause orð at sóttisk, taking the meaning to be ‘words were found to the purpose’; so also Jón Skaptason (1983): ‘Words came together’. It has been suggested (Finnur Jónsson, LH I, 587) that the praise-poem for Óláfr was possibly Sigv Nesv.