Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Qupperneq 105

Skömm er óhófi œvi 103
generous and — this constitutes its rhetorical brilliance — at the same time more
insulting to Sámr.
The balance sheet seasons the pardon with a dash of gall. Some may regard
Hrafnkell’s adjudication as signifying the hero’s recently acquired moderation,
but I see in him an apparently new-found appreciation of the uses of irony. That
we sense immediately that he will not be the victim of the boomerang effect that
brought Sámr to ruin lends a certain felicitousness to his reversal. In addition, no
defeat tastes so bitter as the ones we cause ourselves, and as the author of his own
demise, Sámr carries all before him. Finally, the best evidence that Sámr’s alleged
mercy is actually a means of prolonging the flush of victory is Hrafnkell’s use of
the balance-sheet model. The hero has his cake and eats it too: pardoning his
defeated adversary permits him to rub Sámr’s nose in the dirt.
In addition to presenting Hrafnkell as a master of irony, the balance-sheet
shows him also to be more generous than Sámr. In the first three rubrics in the
table Hrafnkell matches Sámr term for term, but in (4) and (6) he counter’s Sámr’s
meanness with decency. Where Sámr allows Hrafnkell only “the goods he [Sámr]
alone specifies” — and these are “exceedingly little” (harðla lítit and raunarlítii)
— Hrafnkell by contrast gives Sámr possession of the goods (fémunir) he brought
with him (but none of the “growth”) and Eyvindr’s “wealth”. While Sámr first
impoverishes Hrafnkell and then banishes him from the district, Hrafnkell allows
Sámr to retain his farm with enough capital to maintain it, albeit with this
warning: máttu ok tilþess ætla, atþú muntþví verr fiara, sem vit eigumsk fileira illt
við (132). While Hrafnkell’s conduct does not qualify him for sainthood, never-
theless as a conclusion to a feud as bitter as this one his self-judgment ranks fairly
low on the scale of vindictiveness.
The real contrast in generosity, however, is that Hrafnkell alone introduces the
notion of justice into the deliberations. Precisely where an equivalent gesture on
Sámr’s part is missing, rubric (5), Hrafnkell weighs up the pros and the cons.
Sámr of course did not mention Hrafnkell’s offer to Þorbjörn when taking
sjálfdœmi, nor does he speak of justice when carrying out the sentence of the court
at the Alþing, for its purpose, as we have seen, was to take maximum revenge by
humiliating Hrafnkell. In contrast Hrafnkell allows the injuries on both sides of
the dispute to pass in review: for Eyvindr no compensation because Einarr’s death
was prosecuted “in excess”29 and because Eyvindr’s death and that of his men are
29 Precisely what Hrafnkell means here with herjiliga can be understood in the terms Gunnarr uses
in settling his dispute with Otkell: “þat er gerð mín at ek geri verð húss ok matar þess, er inni
var. En fyrir þrælinn vil ek þér ekki bæta, þar er þú leyndir annmarka á honum, en ek geri hann
þér til handa, því at þar eru eyru sæmst, sem óxu.Metek svá sem þér hafiSstefiit mér til háSungar,
ok fyrir þat dæmi ek eigi minna til handa mér en vert er þetta fé, húsit ok þat, er inni brann”
(XII, 132).
As I argued above, Gunnarr seems to believe that the summons itself constituted an offense
as grave as the theft. His belief seems to have had currency in the community, for Gunnarr is
said to win “great honor” from the case (Gunnarr hajSi mikla sœmð af málinu). H rafnkell places
the same interpretation on Sámr’s motives and uses them as one justification for his receiving
no compensation for Eyvindr.