Ekúl Frag 1^III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr kúlnasveinn, Fragment 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. 134.

Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses

In FoGT this stanza is used to exemplify the figure the treatise calls exflexigesis (normally efflexigesis), which is defined as skýring eðr glöggvari greining fyrirfaranda hluta ‘the explanation or clearer exposition of previous things’, and introduced by sem Eilífr kvað ‘as Eilífr said’.

The first helmingr refers to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, when crowds of people came to meet him, strewing his path with palm fronds, a subject also treated in Anon Leið 30^VII, where similar vocabulary is used. The second helmingr draws a parallel between Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and the risen Christ’s invitation to good Christians, who have performed good deeds, to come to him in heaven, arguably to be interpreted as the New Jerusalem. Thus the stanza is an appropriate example of the figure efflexigesis, as defined in the prose text of FoGT. — [1-4]: The scribe of ms. W has obviously understood l. 1 as Bôru mæt á móti because he has divided the elements thus: ‘Bꜳ̋rv mæt áá moti’. However, it is possible that the <a> that he interpreted as the prep. á was originally intended as the acc. pl. ending -a belonging to the previous adj., mæta ‘glorious’. This is how the line has been understood in the present edn. Mæta can then be construed with palma ‘palms’ in l. 2, rather than (so Skj B) as part of a fragmented intercalary clause spanning ll. 1, 3 and 4, mæt sveit hrauð sorg ‘the glorious company banished sorrow’. Skald (cf. NN §1215) emends mæt (l. 1) to mætt ‘gloriously’ (adv.; not attested elsewhere) and takes it with the verb bôru ‘carried’. Against this suggestion is Kock’s own observation in NN §1215 that Ekúl Kristdr 3/2 also uses the adj. mætr ‘glorious’ and separates it from its referent.  — [5-8]: The syntax of these lines is difficult, and many eds have emended some or all of the following words, as they appear in W: laðar (l. 5), siklingr (l. 5), síns (l. 6), bjartir (l. 6) and þeir (l. 7). Skj B and Skald do not emend, and construe thus: svá laðar siklingr skýja til hjarta síns, þeirs bjartir fœra fyrða gram fǫgr verk með sterkri trú ‘thus the king of the clouds invites to his heart those who, pure, bring to the ruler of men beautiful deeds in strong faith’. The present edn follows a similar interpretation, emending only the adj. bjartir (l. 6) to bjarta m. acc. pl. and þeir m. nom. pl. ‘they’ (l. 7) to þá (m. acc. pl. to agree with its antecedent) and placing bjarta in the main rather than the subordinate clause as direct object of laðar ‘invites’. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884, 264-5) made three emendations, to produce the following sense: Svá laða þeir, er fœra fyrða gram fǫgr verk með sterkri trú, bjartan skýja sikling til hjarta síns ‘Thus they, who bring the ruler of men beautiful deeds with strong faith, invite the bright prince of the clouds to their heart(s)’. An even more drastic emendation was proposed by Thorlacius and Sveinbjörn Egilsson (FoGT 1884, loc. cit.). — [7]: This is an odd Type B-line, which is rare after the C12th and could indicate an early date of composition (see Kuhn 1983, 142; Gade 1995a, 103).