7 - Speech Situations and the Pragmatics of Gender

Summary

No comprehensive analysis of pragmatics in Old Norse-Icelandic literature would be complete without consideration of the cutting-out-the-shirt scene from Gísla saga Súrssonar, when Gísli's wife, Auðr, and sister-in-law, Ásgerðr, argue over which of them will be better at cutting out a shirt for Ásgerðr's husband (and Gísli's brother), Þorkell. The two women are working one morning in the dyngja, a part of the Icelandic homestead that would have been almost exclusively occupied by the women of the house, when, thinking themselves alone, they engage in a brief but damaging conversation:

(1a) Ásgerðr: “Veittu mér þat, at þú sker mér skyrtu, Auðr, Þorkatli bónda mínum.”

(1b) Auðr: “Þat kann ek eigi betr en þú,” sagði Auðr, “ok myndir þú eigi mik til biðja, ef þú skyldir skera Vésteini bróður mínum skyrtuna.”

(1c) Ásgerðr: “Eitt er þat sér,” segir Ásgerðr, “ok svá mun mér þykkja nëkkura stund.”

(1d) Auðr: “Lëngu vissa ek þat,” segir Auðr, “hvat við sik var, ok roeðum ekki um fleira.”

(1e) Ásgerðr: “Þat þykki mér eigi brigzl,” sagði Ásgerðr, “þótt mér þykki Vésteinn góðr. Hitt var mér sagt, at þit Þorgrímr hittizk mjëk opt, áðr en þú værir Gísla gefin.”

(1f) Auðr: “Því fylgðu engir mannlestir,” segir Auðr, “því at ek tók engan mann undir Gísla, at því fylgði neinn mannlëstr; ok munu vit nú hætta þessi roeðu.”

(1a) Ásgerðr: “Help me with something: cut out a shirt for me, Auðr, for Þorkell, my husband.”

(1b) Auðr: “I cannot do that better than you, […] and you would not ask me to do that, if you were to cut a shirt for Vésteinn, my brother.”

(1c) Ásgerðr: “That is another thing, […] and so shall it seem to me for a while.”

(1d) Auðr: “I have known about that for a long time, […] what was going on, and we will say no more about it.”

(1e) Ásgerðr: “It doesn't seem shameful to me that I should think well of Vésteinn. I have heard it said that you and Þorgrímr spent quite a lot of time together, before you were married to Gísli.”

(1f) Auðr: “There's no way to find shame in that, […] because I have been with no man other than my husband; therefore, there is not any shame, and we will now stop this conversation.”