--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "AThompson" <athompso@...> wrote:

>
> Here´s my translation. I´m afraid I´m a bit rusty.

Welcome back, Alan!

> ef þú sérð vel fyrir.

"if you take care of / deal with [this business] well"

'þú sérð' is the Modern Icelandic form [
http://www.lexis.hi.is/beygingarlysing/so/sb/sja1.html ] corresponding
to Old Icelandic 'þú sér', 2nd person singular, present indicative of
'sjá' "to see". 'sjá fyrir e-u' "to see to s-thing".

> Skal þess að bíða er þetta gengur fram

"We must wait till this goes ahead / comes to pass."

'skal' + inf. is used here in an impersonal construction, as often.
'bíða' takes genitive for the thing that's waited for; 'þess...er'
"that [point in time]...when". 'þess' is the compliment of the verb,
rather than of 'að'; so, if I've understood this right, 'að' is
adverbial rather than a preposition, (redundantly) also expressing the
idea of motion towards/until the time when it happens.

CV (and Zoega) have a simpler version: 'skal þess bíða er þetta gengr
fram'. But Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson's edition matches our
text: 'skal þess at bíða, er þetta gengr fram'.

Here are some less complicated examples of 'bíða...áðr' and
'bíða...að' "to wait till".

Þá var eigi langt að bíða áður reknir voru klyfjahestar fram um mýrina
"It wasn't long (to wait) then before the pack-horses were driven
forward across the bog"
(Brennu-Njáls saga).

var þá og eigi langt að bíða, að byr rann á af landi
"and it wasn't long (to wait) then before a breeze came from up off
the land"
(Egils saga Skallagrímsson).

For the redundancy, compare this from the Icelandic Bible, which
expresses the same idea with 'bíða að' + 'þess...að', rather than
'bíða að' + 'þess...er' as we had in our example.

Og Esaú hugsaði með sjálfum sér: "Þess mun eigi langt að bíða, að menn
munu syrgja föður minn látinn, og skal ég þá drepa Jakob bróður minn."
(Genesis 27:41).

"And Esau thought to himself: It won't be long (to wait) before my
father will be mourned for, and then I'll kill my brother Jakob."