Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1967, Page 72

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TÍMARIT ÞJÓÐRÆKNISFÉLAGS ISLENDINGA
Nó þæs fród leofað/gumena
bearna, þat þone grund wite./
Ðeah þe hæðstapa hundum
geswenced, / heorot hornum
trum holtwudu sése,/feorran
geflýmed, ær hé feorh seleð,/
aldor on ófre, ær hé in wille,/
hafelan (beorgan); nis þæt hé-
oru stów. . . (No one of the
children of men lives so wise
that he k n o w the bottom.
Though the heath-ranger, the
hart strong in horns, pressed
by hounds, seek the woods,
chased from f a r, it sooner
gives up its life on the brink—
than going in to save its head;
that is not a pleasant place).
The lake is so terrifying that not
even a hunted animal will go into it
to save its neck. After this strong
image, it is quietly remarked that
“this is not a pleasant place.”
In the foregoing discussion the
understatement has generally been
seen as an afterthought uttered by
a more-or-less objective narrator. In
addition to this, Old English poets
sometimes put understatements into
the mouths of characters who are
strongly emotionally involved. Thus,
in “Soul and Body” the spirit angrily
speaks to the body, reminding it of
the difference between the present
state and the earlier condition when
the body enjoyed itself:
Nis nú se ende ió gód./Wære
þú þé wiste wlonc ond wínes
sæd,/þrymful þundedest, ond
ic ofþyrsted wæs . . . (Now the
end is not too good. You were
proud in feast and sated with
wine; you were glorious and
proud, and I was thirsty).
Similarly, in “The Dream of the
Rood” the speaker relates his vision
of the true cross which has moved
him powerfully, and then remarks:
Ne wæs þær húru fracodes gealga—
“indeed, that was not the gallows of
a criminal.” In “The Seafarer” the
speaker, after describing his hard-
ships at sea, remarks:
Forþon mé hátran sind/Dryht-
nes dréamas þonne þis déade
líf/læne on londe . . . (There-
fore the joys of the Lord are
more desirable to me than this
d e a d life, transitory in the
land).
Lamenting her fate, the woman
speaker in “The Wife’s Lament,
apparently quite alone, complains of
having had “few friends”:
áhte ic léofra lýt on þissum
londstede,/h o I d r a fréonda.
Forþon is mín hyge géomor. • •
(I had few dear ones, loyal
friends, in this country. There-
fore my mood is sad).
Later, she imagines her loved one
suffering in a miserable place, the
dreary landscape suggesting her
mournful mood:
þæt mín fréond siteð / under
stánhliðe storme behrímed./
wine wérigmód, wætre beflo-
wen/on dréorsele. Dréogeð se
mín wine/micle módceare; he
geman tó oft/wynlícran wic-
(My friend sits under a stony
slope, berimed with storm, nay
fr'iend in weary mood,
drenched with water in a sad