Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr kúlnasveinn, Kristsdrápa 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 130.
Hróts lýtr helgum crúci
heims ferð ok lið beima;
sannrs an ǫll dýrð ǫnnur
einn sólkonungr hreinni.
{Ferð {hróts heims}} ok {lið beima} lýtr helgum crúci; {sannr sólkonungr} [e]s einn hreinni an ǫll ǫnnur dýrð.
{The host {of the roof of the world}} [SKY/HEAVEN > ANGELS] and {the company of men} [HUMANS] bow to the holy cross; {the true king of the sun} [= God (= Christ)] is alone purer than all other glory.
Mss: R(35v), Tˣ(37r), W(80), U(34v), A(12r) (SnE)
Readings: [1] Hróts: ‘hrp ᷎tz’ Tˣ, ‘hrocz’ U; helgum: ‘hal[…]m’ U; crúci: so all others, krúzi R [2] lið: kyn A; beima: ‘beim[…]’ U [3] sannr: sǫnn all [4] einn: so Tˣ, U, A, ein R, W; sólkonungr: so U, A, Máríu R, Tˣ, W; hreinni: so U, A, sveini R, Tˣ, W
Editions: Skj AI, 572, Skj BI, 565, Skald I, 274, NN §2546; SnE 1848-87, I, 448-9, II, 334, 445, III, 90, SnE 1931, 159, SnE 1998, I, 77.
Context: The helmingr is introduced, among other examples of kennings for Christ, with the words svá kvað Eilífr kúlnasveinn ‘so said Eilífr kúlnasveinn’ (Eilífr alone without kúlnasveinn in U).
Notes: [All]: The scene envisaged in the first couplet of this helmingr is of angels on the one hand, and humans on the other, bowing down to worship Christ’s cross. In the second couplet the focus shifts to Christ himself. It is possible that the poet had a visual representation of the adoratio crucis ‘adoration of the cross’ in mind when composing these lines. — [1] lýtr ‘bow’: The verb is 3rd pers. sg. with a coordinate subject. The same verb is used in st. 2/1 in the same position, though there the subject is a single collective noun. — [1] crúci ‘to the … cross’: The reading of all mss except R. On the Latinate spelling, see Anon Líkn 39/1VII and Note. Most recent eds (Skj B; Skald; SnE 1998) have followed R’s spelling and written krúzi. Here the syllable crúc- forms a skothending with hróts and <c> presumably had the pronunciation [ts], whether the spelling was with <c> or <z>. — [2] lið beima ‘the company of men [HUMANS]’: Ms. A has kyn beima ‘the kinsfolk of men’. The same kenning is at Gamlkan Has 20/6VII. — [3] sannr ‘true’: All mss read sǫnn and this reading was adopted by Finnur Jónsson in Skj B, construing sólkonungr es einn hreinni an ǫll ǫnnur sǫnn dýrð ‘the king of the sun is alone purer than all other true glory’. SnE 1998 also follows the ms. forms here. The problem with doing so, as Kock (NN §2546) noted, is that Finnur’s construal has the verb embedded in the comparative part of the clause, whereas the word before es ‘is’ must belong to its main part; hence the emendation to the m. sg. adj. sannr to agree with sólkonungr. — [4]: Three mss, R, Tˣ and W, have ein Máríu sveini here. No sense can be made of ll. 3-4 with this reading, which must have been produced by scribal dittography in an earlier exemplar of these mss, anticipating st. 2/2.
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