Plus loads of apologies for taking sooooo long to get back to
you. I promise I will get back into the swing of things properly again
now.
Anyway, if you can still remember back that far, perhaps I can
help unravel some of the knots in this section...
Auðun kvesk ekki til hafa fyrir at gefa
Auðun (declared) he had nothing in hand to
give
This is correct without the "in hand". Hafa is to
have. Audun says himself not there/existing to have to give - is
a very literal translation. Kveðja+sk. This -sk form can have either
passive, reciprocal or reflexive meaning. You're right, "declares" is a
good English translation.
OK. This next bit is tricky...
at þetta kvæmisk til leiðar
Here Audun is expressing a wish and he is therefore using the
subjunctive (one of the few - maybe only - true form of that which we still
have in English is "if I were you") but Old Norse has the full set of
subjunctives!!! So this kvæmisk is the past
subjunctive of koma+sk (reciprocal/reflexive/passive ending). And til leiðar is literally the preposition til which governs
the genitive and the noun leið meaning way, road, path, course. However,
that doesn't really help you a whole lot because the whole thing put together is
an expression meaning "to bring about"!!! Don't you just love languages
:-)
at ek mætta dýrit fra
Konungi
This is still using the subjunctive, expressing his (as yet)
unfulfilled desire of bring his bear before the king. So mætta
is another subjunctive, infinitive mega. dýrit the animal. fra to bring, send or present.
Ek mun fá þér vistir. sem it þurfuð
Your translation of this was correct, except "it" is the
dual form of the 2nd person plural - you.
This next bit was virtually correct...
en þar i móti vil ek eiga hálft
dýrit
but there in return want I to own half animal-the
You had a query about this bit -
ok máttu á þat lita
and may you at it look
You had the rest of the sentence ok.
This little bit wasn´t quite right, but the rest was
-
en fé sé farit
but money is gone. Here sé is the present subjunctive of
vera, so to give that impression of possibility we have to use an auxiliary verb
- such as "the money may be gone"
You´ve done really well with this. I hope you´ve got
your books now and I´m sure yu will find the next bit easier :-)
Áki lézk selja mundu honum vistir, ef hann vildi.
Auðun kvezk ekki til hafa fyrir at gefa; "en ek vilda þó", segir hann "at
þetta kvæmisk til leiðar at ek mætta dýrit foera konungi." "Ek mun
fá þér vistir, sem it þurfuð, til konungs fundar; en þar í móti vil ek
eiga hálft dýrit. Ok máttu á þat líta, at dýrit mun deyja fyrir þér,
þars it þurfuð vistir miklar, en fé sé farit, ok er búit við at þú hafir
þá ekki dýrsins."