Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1967, Page 67

UNDERSTATEMENT IN OLD ENGLISH AND OLD ICELANDIC 49
ent, such effect is very subdued.
In a similar description of a fierce
engagement in “The Battle of Mal-
don,” we learn that bogan wæron
bysige — “the bows were busy” —
when people are actually being
killed. In “The Dream of the Rood”
the instrumental phrase mæte
werode — “with few troops” — oc-
curs twice in the sense of “alone,”
one instance referring to the
body of Christ, in the other to the
cross — the speaker at this point
the poem — as a simple varia-
hon of Þær ic ána wæs. It is con-
ceivable that the condition of being
elone is stressed through the use
°f litoies, but if so, the effect is not
strong.
As we see, the conventional na-
ture of certain idioms would sug-
§est that little emphasis results
from their use, as, for instance in
‘The Wife’s Lament,” when a wo-
makes the following state-
uient:
Ongunnon þæt þæs monnes
»ágas hycgan / þurh dyrne
geþóht þæt hý dódælden unc
(The man’s kinsmen began
(the word may also be trans-
lated as undertook, in which
case this is less of an under-
statement) to consider,
through hidden thought (i.e.
secretly), that they should
separate us).
^be speaker here refers to a past
event — an enforced separation
^rom her husband or lover — by
Saying that his kinsmen “began”
Plotting to do this. But the verb
0n9innan is very conventional in
all sorts of contexts, so it is diffi-
cult to see any special rhetorical
effect here. In a rather similar way,
certain words in Old English may
have originated as euphemisms,
such as feorhgedál and endedógor
for “death.” But these words seem
to be used so freely as synonymous
with “death” that any rhetorical
effect seems improbable. The same
is true of similar words in Old
Icelandic, such as lok and endadagr.
The criterion of conventionality,
suggested before, would seem to
rule out any special effect in the
description in Egils Saga of a trip
that the hero, as a young boy, under-
takes at night: Honum varð ógreið-
færi um mýrarnar, því at hann
kunni enga leið — “the going across
the bogs was difficult for him, as
he knew no path.” Ógreiðfærr is
such a common adjective, meaning
simply “difficult to travel,“ that no
special attention need be paid to
the negative prefix. Related to this
are certain standard negative
phrases that occur so frequently in
the sagas and in such ordinary con-
texts that they seem to have been
reduced to mere clichés with little
rhetorical effect at all. Thus we
learn in Laxdæla Saga that Þor-
gerðr var eigi lengi ekkja, áðr maðr
varð iil að biðja hennar — “Þor-
gerðr did not remain a widow long
before a man happened to propose
to her.“ We also learn that þau
Herjólfr ok Þorgerðr höfðu eigi
lengi ásamí verii, áðr þeim varð
sonar auðii —“Herjólfr and Þor-
gerðr had not been married long be-
fore they were blessed with a son.”
Similarly, we see that another
couple — Höskuldr ok Jórunn höfðu