Gripla - 01.01.2003, Page 55

SIX NOTES ON THE INTERPRETATION OF HYMISKVIÐA
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svá at ár Hymir so that at first Hymir
ekki mælti. said nothing.
Veifði hann rœðo [mss. rœði] He diverted the talk
veðrs annars til. to a different tack. (26/1-6)
In the MS. text there is a puzzling conflict between 1. 2 and 11. 5-6: ‘when
they rowed back’[i.e. ‘home’] — as indeed they did, for Þórr bar til bœiar the
giant’s great fish 28/7 — Hymir then ‘switched the rudder in another
direction’ veifði rœði.... i.e. not ‘back home’. A small emendation of rœði to
rœðo makes the giant simply ‘change the subject’, deliberately refuse to
mention the events he had just witnessed, and start on a new topic.
DH 241 note the incongruity of the MS. text and suggest that veifði rœði
should be understood metaphorically: ‘he tumed the rudder — i.e. the control
of the conversation — in another direction’, and, in the following stanza,
Hymir does propose a comparative test of strength with Þórr. Bray 121
follows DH: ‘then anew he tumed the tiller of thought’. SG dismiss this
metaphorical interpretation as a bizarre notion — ein wunderlicher einfall.
Emendation of rœði to rœðo may make a more acceptable metaphor.
Von See 331 would read 26/5-6 as reference to an action that has implic-
itly taken place in 26/2 — er þeir aptr rero. Hymir must have ‘switched his
rudder to another direction’ before they could row back. Such redundance of
statement is foreign to this poet’s narrative style. The parallel of hysteron
proteron claimed to be in 28/7-10 is not, I think, valid, since 11. 9-10 are not
likely to be original to this version of Hymiskviða (see 4. below).
4. Hymiskviða 28/9-10
Þórr responds to the giant’s question with panache — taking both tasks upon
himself:
Gekk Hlóriði,
greip á stafni,
vatt með austri
upp lqgfáki.
Einn með árom
ok með austskoto,
Hlóriði stepped out,
seized hold of the prow,
swung the sea-stead up ashore
with its unbaled brine.
On his own, with the oars
and the baling bucket,