Cite as: Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Máríuvísur II 20’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 714-15.

Tunga má það alls aung inna í brag sinn, hvessu móðir míns guðs mundi heiðra göfugt sprund,

þá er föður hrings hlíð hreinum færði kvikan svein, þann er fjörvi fjogur dægr firðr lá á börum stirðr.

Alls aung tunga má inna það í brag sinn, hvessu {móðir guðs míns} mundi heiðra göfugt sprund, þá er {hlíð hrings} færði hreinum föður kvikan svein, þann er lá firðr fjörvi fjogur dægr stirðr á börum.

No tongue at all can express that in its poetry, how {the mother of my God} [= Mary] could honour a glorious woman, when {the slope of the ring} [WOMAN] brought to the pure father the living boy, who lay, deprived of life, for two days and nights stiff on the bier.

Mss: 713(87), 721(14r)

Editions: Skj: [Anonyme digte og vers XIV], [B. 5]. En digt om et andet Maria-jærtegn 20: AII, 495, BII, 537, Skald II, 294, Metr. §§14B, 20; Kahle 1898, 42, Sperber 1911, 13-14, Wrightson 2001, 64.

Notes: [3] móðir guðs míns ‘the mother of my God [= Mary]’: Skj B and Skald emend to móður (f. acc. sg.) ‘mother’ and take göfugt sprund ‘woman’ as the subject of the cl. (‘how the glorious woman could honour the mother of my God’). If we assume that Mary honoured the woman by allowing her to return to her husband with the living child (cf. 16/5), that emendation is unnecessary. — [7] fjogur dægr (n. acc. pl.) ‘for two days and nights’: Lit. ‘for four periods of twelve hours’. Dægr refers to the period of one night or one day (see Fritzner: dægr), and the mother brought the child to the church on the second day after his death. For the form fjogur (n. acc. pl.) ‘four’, see ANG §448. Skj B and Skald read ‘fjǫgr’, a form that is not clear (Sperber has fjǫgur and Wrightson fjögur).