Sælir Jed ok Simon!
Sorry I haven´t got back to you sooner - if you
could see my diary, you´d know why!!
Eptir þat kveldar ok drifa menn
i höllina...
when I first translated this I used 'drift' too,
Simon. But apparently drifa has more of a sense of lots of people and
being rather more proactive about it than the English word 'drift' does!
So flocked, thronged, came in droves - although all a bit old-fashioned, do
convey the meaning more. Byock uses 'crowded into the hall' - perhaps
that's a good compromise.
ok sjá Hrólfs kappar at Höttr er settr á bekk
upp...
thanks for your comments here, Xigung. As you
say 'settr' comes from the verb 'setja', meaning placed or put - but the English
verb 'to be seated' also carries an almost identical meaning, as in "The
naughty child was seated next to the teacher".
ok þykir þeim sá maðr hafa gört sik
oerit djarfan, er þetta hefir til tekit...
we had this passage in our exam and my mind went
blank at this point and I got in a complete tangle! But according to
Barnes an idiomatic translation of this would be
"it seems to them the man who has done
this has shown considerable arrogance". Word order was relatively
free in ON so if you read it like this
ok þykir þeim sá maðr, er þetta hefir til
tekit, hafa gört sik oerit djarfan
which becomes a little clearer to an
English-speaker.
"oerit" is an adverb meaning enough,
sufficiently
"djarfan" is an adjective meaning bold or
arrogant. "djarfan" is strong, masculine, accusative agreeing with "sik"
also accusative. "sik" refers back to "sá maðr", the subject of the
clause. So a literal translation á la Sarah Bowen would be...
and seems to them this man has made himself
sufficiently bold who has undertaken this
... then it is only a short step to put it into
colloquial English as Barnes has. So I think both of you unravelled this
really well. (I wish I'd had you sitting next to me in the
exam!)
Illt tillit hefir Höttr, þá er hann
sér kunningja sína...
this means Höttr has a "tillit" (expression) and it
is his expression which is "illt" - bad, expressing dislike, or as you say,
Simon, hostile.
því at hann hefir illt eitt af þeim
reynt...
Xigung, you mention you are not sure of the meaning
of "eitt" here - well, according to my lecture notes it is a strong neuter
singular adjective agreeing with "illt". Although it is the same word as
the numeral 'one' and is used adjectivally here, it corresponds most naturally
to the English adverbs 'only' or 'just' - which is what you had,
Simon.
hann vill lifa gjarnan ok fara aptr í
beinahrúgu sína, en Böðvarr heldr honum, svá at hann náir ekki í brottu at fara,
því at hann þóttisk ekki jafnberr fyrir höggum þeira, ef hann næði þangat at
komask, sem hann er nú.
Well done, both of you! Simon, "náir" has a
bit of the sense of´ 'manages to' and Jed, "jafnberr" carries the idea of
'equally exposed' i.e. equally: sitting up on the bench as compared to down in
his pile of bones. So perhaps if you prefer, we could just say
'he would not feel as exposed to their blows if he managed to get back
there, as he does now'.
Hirðmenn hafa nú sama vanda, ok kasta
fyrst beinum smám um þvert gólfit til Bödvars og Hattar. Böðvarr lætr sem
hann sjái eigi þetta. Höttr er svá hræddr at hann tekr eigi mat né drykk,
ok þykkir honum þá ok þá sem hann muni vera lostinn.
Again, clear translations. Xigung, you
mention about "muni". Well, it is the 3rd person singular subjunctive
of munu meaning 'will' or 'must' so "would be hit" is an accurate English
translation.
Ok nú mælti Höttr til Boðvars
"Bokki sæll, nú ferr at þér stór knúta, ok mun þetta ætlat okkr til
nauða." Böðvarr bað hann þegja.
Jed, the subject "stór knúta" is singular here (you
can tell from the verb as well - ferr: 3rd p. sing of fara). I like your
translation of "coming at you"... maybe this is better than "travelling",
Simon. (Although I quite like "now a big knuckle-bone is travelling
towards you..." - it conjures up images in my mind from spoof films like
"Naked Gun 2 and a half" or "Robin Hood - Men in Tights"!!!!!)
Right, well I'm all in now so I'm off to bed and
I'll come back to you on the last few lines when I get home from work
tomorrow. (And next time I have an ON exam, can I sneak you in in my
pockets, please?)
Kveðja,
Sarah.