Gripla - 20.12.2015, Page 36

GRIPLA36
sol conjiciebat ex meridie suâ, lunam
Dexterâ, trans cœlestis equi fores.25
[from the south the sun drove forth the moon with its right hand
through the gates of the heavenly horse.]
In stefán ólafsson’s note to the translation, it can be inferred that the
myths in Gylfaginning underlay his interpretation of the verses, as Hrímfaxi
is described as night’s horse. He also observes that ‘alii pro Himin Jódyr
legant Himin Jaðar quod cæli marginem denotat’ [in place of Himin Jódyr
some read Himin Jaðar which has the sense of ‘boundary of the sky’], and
adds that this reading cannot be preferred over the text of the codex vetus-
tissimus (which must therefore be r, as he derives most of his text from
it). Although he does not ascribe the choice of himinjaðar to anybody in
particular, he may have seen it in guðmundur Andrésson’s notes (AM
165 8vo), which were used elsewhere in resen’s edition or, as Anthony
Faulkes suggests, in a copy of R sent to s. j. stephanius.26 except for H,
there is no other medieval manuscript that seems to have been known and
in circulation among the antiquarians, from which the reading himinjaðarr
could have been derived. H has the reading of jöður [across/around the
edge] and guðmundur Andrésson used H for his transcriptions and notes.
Himinjaðarr is written in a margin of AM 165 8vo and it is possible that it
is a derivation from the verses in R and H, very much in the same fashion
that sophus Bugge derived himinjöðurr [edge of the sky] two hundred years
later.
Rask’s edition from 1818 had á himin jódyr27 while the 1828 edition of
Guðmundur magnússon and others adopted um himin–iodýr with a com-
ment on the other possible reading:
Cum nempe lectionem Iódýr in casu dubio præferas. si legas Iódyr,
sensus verbi penitus mutabitur, tunc enim sermo foret de coeli
25 Vøluspå, in Edda Islandorum, ed. Resen, sig. A3v. Faulkes, Two Versions, 2:79-84 explains
the relations between the transcription of Völuspá, its Latin translation and the textual
notes. As will be seen in the following argument, the Latin translation did not always fol-
low the transcribed text.
26 Faulkes, Two Versions, 2:77–78, 83.
27 Edda Sæmundar hinns Fróda: Collectio carminum veterum scaldorum Saemundiana dicta, ed.
rasmus rask (Stockholm: typis. Elmenianis, 1818), 1.
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