Sorry about this! Njal's speeches are hard enough without me confusing
things... 'koma orði á' is glossed in the ÍF edition as 'orða, nefna'
"to mention". But the text there is a little different to ours, as I
think Patricia mentioned. This is how the ÍF edition goes:

"En ef þér hefðið við mik um ráðizk í fyrstu, þá munduð þér aldri hafa
orði á komit. ok myndi yðr þá engi svívirðing í vera, en nú hafið þér
af ina mestu raun, ok mun þat þó svá aukanda fara um yðra svívirðing,
at þér munuð ekki fá at gört, fyrr en þér leggið vandræði á yðr ok
vegið með vápnum, ok er því langa nót at at draga."

"But I you had consulted be to begin with, then you would never have
mentioned [it]. And then there would be no dishonour for you in
[this], but now you will have from it the greatest trouble/trials.
But, as it is, this matter will go on adding to your disgrace to the
point where you won't be able to achieve anything till you bring down
troubles on yourselves and turn to violence, and so we have a long net
to draw in." (i.e. we have to lay our trap carefully).

Or in the text we're reading:

> þá mundi aldrei orði á hafa verið komið

(If you'd consulted me) "then it would never have been mentioned", the
matter would never have come up: you wouldn't have said that Thrain
owed you compensation, so you wouldn't have had to resort to violence
when he didn't pay up. My comments on which auxiliaries are
subordinate to which still holds, I hope; it's just the meaning I got
muddled with. I should have written:

koma orði á, lit. "to bring word onto [it]", i.e. "to mention it"

'orði á vera komið' "word to be brought onto [it]"

'orði á hafa verið komið' "word to have been brought onto [it]"

'mundi orði á hafa verið komið' "word would have been brought onto
[it]" (it would not have been mentioned: you wouldn't have mentioned it)

I hope that's a little bit clearer at least. Again, appologies for
further confusing an already quite confusing sentence!

LN

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@...> wrote:
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Fred and Grace Hatton"
> <hatton@> wrote:
> >
> > spjót í hendi jarlsnaut
> > a spear in hand ???
>
> "a gift from the earl" (refering to the spear). 'jarlsnaut' is in
> apposition to 'spjót', like 'konungr' in 'Haraldr konungr'. Weapons
> are often called someone's 'naut' "gift" after a previous owner,
> whether or not that owner gave it up willingly.
>
> > En ef þér hefðuð við mig um ráðið í fyrstu þá mundi aldrei orði á
> hafa verið komið
> > But if you have (come?) to me for advice in the first place then
> would never have happened to have been come (to this? - - way, way
> tooo many past participles for my comfort)
>
> Heh, heh. And there was you advising someone to take up learning
> German not so long ago, and I quote: "For English speakers, a good
> place to start is German [...]" ;-)
>
> "But if you *had* (past subjunctive 2nd person plural = normalised Old
> Norse 'hefðið') come to me for advice (or: consulted with me about it,
> sought my advice) in the first place, then this demeaning rumour would
> never have been attached to you (or: gained currency, etc.)."
>
> koma e-u á "to bring something about, to effect something". In this
> case, 'orði' is the dative object of the verb, the demeaning rumour
> that has been "put into effect" by circulating it.
>
> 'á [...] vera komið' "to be brought about"
> 'á hafa verið komið' "to have been brought about"
> 'mundi [...] á hafa verið komið' "would have been brought about"
>