Thanks for your help, Brian.
Grace
> Dreki blés eldi mót Víga-Óbívan, en Ljósamækir inn groni
> var harðast allra sverða, ok át allan þann eld, er dreki
> blés.
> (The) dragon blew fire towards Slayer Obian and
This <en> is definitely 'but'.
> Lightsaber the green was most hard of all swords and took
> all that fire which (the) dragon blew.
<Át> is the 3rd person sing. past tense of <eta> 'to eat':
the sword ate the fire.
> Hann hjó aptr, ok tók af annan fót, ok þriðja.
> He hewed back and took off another foot and a third.
<Aptr> is also 'again', which is clearly the intended sense
here.
> Dreki fell þá, en Víga-Óbívan reiddi upp sverðit hart ...
> Then (the) dragon fell, but Slayer Obiwan swung the sword
> hard ...
Here, on the other hand, it's simply the narrative
connective 'and'.
> "Sveinn! Ok sveinn!
> "Boy! And Boy!
Since Óbívan is adult, 'lad' or 'fellow' is probably a
better choice. CV s.v. <ok> (A.V) notes that the word can
be used as an interjection, so this is probably something
like 'Lad! Oh, lad!'
> Hverjum ertu sveini um borinn?
> To whom? are you born as a boy?
The word order is a bit confusing, but I'm pretty sure that
<sveini> goes with <hverjum>: <Hverjum sveini ertu borinn?>
'Of what lad/fellow are you born?', i.e., 'Who is your
father?' (The <um> is a particle, usually found before
verbs, equivalent to the second <of> entry in Zoëga; its use
is almost exclusively limited to old poetry, and it can be
ignored in translation.)
> Hverra ertu manna mögr?
> Of what man are you ??
<Mögr> is 'son'. (It's in Zoëga.) <Hverra manna> is
genitive plural, so it's 'Of what people are you a son?';
the head is asking for his lineage.
> Er þú gramr rautt
> Are you an angry roar??
> þinn inn grona mæki:
> Yours the green sword:
<Rautt> is a variant past tense of <rjóða>; Zoëga doesn't
mention it, but CV does. I frankly don't understand the
word order <er þú>: the sense seems to require <þú er> 'you
who'. However, these lines are lifted (with modification)
from the poem 'Fáfnismál', so it probably has to do with the
requirements of the poetic form being used. At any rate, I
make:
You who, angry, reddened
your green sword.
In case you're curious, the original is:
er þú á Fáfni rautt
þinn inn frána mæki
<Frána> 'gleaming, flashing' had to be replaced by <grona>
'green', and <á Fáfni> 'on Fáfnir' clearly had to go; it's
nice that Jackson found <gramr> to preserve the
alliteration.
> stöndumk til hjarta hjörr!"'
> (we) stand sword to heart??"
A slightly rearranged version of this line is in CV s.v.
<standa> (C.I.7), where it's glossed 'the sword touches me
to the heart'. The grammar is a bit of a puzzle: <hjörr> is
nominative and on the face of it ought to be the subject,
but <stöndumk> is the first person singular present <-sk>
form. One other example is given in this section of CV,
<yfir ok undir stóðumk jötna vegir> '[the] giants' ways
(i.e., rocks) stood above and below'; here <vegir> is a
nominative plural that looks as if it ought be the subject,
but <stóðumk> is again first person singular (though this
time in the past tense). The quotation is from 'Hávamál',
and in context it appears that <yfir> and <undir> are in
relation to the speaker, so that it can be understood as
'[the] giants' ways stood above and below [me]'.
In both cases the grammatical subject is an implied <ek>
'I', but the semantic subject, at least according to these
glosses, is the noun in the nominative, <hjörr> in the one
case and <vegir> in the other. It's almost as if they were
'I stand, sword to heart' and 'I stood, [the] giants' ways
above and below', but with the focus shifted from me to the
sword and the ways, respectively. I can see how this fits
with some of the other uses of the <-sk> form -- the role
shifting is a bit like the transformation from active to
passive -- but I don't think that I can verbalize it clearly
just now. It's probably easiest just to think of this as an
idiomatic sense of <standask>.
> En Víga-Óbívan kvað:
> And Slayer Obiwan said,
> "Ætterni mitt
> "My kinsmen
> kveð ek þér ókunnigt vera
> I told you to be unknown
<Kveð> is present tense: 'My lineage I say to be unknown to
you'. This is <kveða> with accusative (ætterni mitt) and
infinitive (vera); it corresponds to English 'I say that my
lineage is unknown to you'.
> ok mik sjálfan it sama:
> and myself the same:
> Kval-Óbívan ek heiti,
> I am named Tormenter Obiwan
'Torment-Obiwan', I think. (And I'm pretty sure that the
reason for changing <Víga-> to <Kval-> is to get
alliteration with <Kvæggan> in the next line; I doubt that
any different sense is actually intended.)
> Kvæggan hét minn faðir
> my father was named Kvaeggan
> er hefk þik vápnum vegit!"
> that I have (I don't understand the "k") slain you with
> weapons."
<Hefk> is a contraction of <hefi ek> 'I have'. It took me
quite a while, but I *think* that I see what's going on
here. If I'm right, this should be understood as <(Er) ek
er hefi þik vápnum vegit> '[It is] I who have slain you with
weapons', the odd word order presumably having to do with
the requirements of the verse form.
> "Karlmannlega er at farit, sveinn," segir hann.
> "(It) is gone manfully, boy," says he.
I think that we have here <fara at> 'to deal with a thing,
to proceed in a certain way', so that it's more like '[That]
is manfully done, lad'.
> Dúkú høggr til Anakins, en Anakinn brá við sverðin, en
> Dúkú hjó hvert högg at öðru, svá at Anakinn fekk ekki
> höggvit í móti.
> Duku hews at Anakinn, but Anakinn turned with the sword,
> but Duku hewed each blow at another, so that Anakinn was
> not able to hew in return.
<Sverðin> is accusative plural: 'with the swords'. It looks
to me as if we have yet another elision, here of <höggvinu>
'the blow' (dative): <en Anakinn brá höggvinu við sverðin>
'but A. turned the blow with the swords'. <Hvert at öðrum>
is 'one after another' (Z. s.v. <hverr> (5)): 'but D. struck
one blow after another'.
> At lokum hjó Dúkú af Anakni höndina, ok varðisk hann þá
> með annarri nökkura stund, þar til er hann fell í óviti
> til jarðar.
> At (the) end Duku hewed off Anakinn's hand and he defended
> then with the other (hand) for some time until he fell
> unconscious to (the) ground.
<At lokum> is even more specifically 'at last, finally'. (I
believe that Z. s.v. <lok> gives the first of these
glosses.)
Brian
Fred and Grace Hatton
Hawley Pa