Grace, Alan, Patricia,
Just in case you're in any doubt
about this, Magnús Magnússon and
Hermann Pálsson are definitely correct in
their interpretation of 'og
mun mig eigi tjóa að letja' as "and it is no
use attempting to
dissuade me."
BV's explanation can't be right
because
1. the person whom it avails (or not) would be in the DATIVE,
not the
accusative. A native speaker of Icelandic has confirmed this for
me.
'ok því bið ek þeim eigi lengra, at ek ætla, at mér muni ekki
tjóa'
"but I won't ask for anything further on their behalf, because
I
suspect that it won't do me any good". (Völsunga saga).
2. "It is
of no use to me to [try to dissuade myself?]" would be
nonsensical in the
context. It's Ósvífur who has been trying to
dissuade his son. Þorvaldur
has just made it clear that he WANTS to
make the attempt. Þorvaldur isn't
trying to dissuade anyone, least of
all
himself!
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _
Incidentally,
my comment on the word order was in no way meant to
imply that there was
anything wrong with it as Old Norse, only that it
was curious to me looking
at it from an English point of view. 'og
mun mig eigi tjóa að letja' could
also be expressed as 'og mun eigi
tjóa að letja mig' (you can find lots of
similar examples on Google).
Þorvaldur means something along the lines
of:
og mun þér eigi tjóa að letja mig
"and it won't do you any good
to try to stop me"
og mun engum tjóa að letja mig
"and it won't do
anyone any good to try to stop me"
"and it's no use anyone trying to stop
me"
LN
--- In norse_course@ yahoogroups. com,
"Blanc Voden" <uoden@...> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> "og mun mig eigi tjóa að letja"
>
> or as most natives
understand it fully:
> "og mun það mig eigi tjóa að letja"
>
> Það tjóar mig eigi: It is of no use to me to .....
>
>
Hope this is of some use to you
>
> My Best
Blanc.