Note to GunnLeif Merl I 41VIII
[All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147.65; cf. Wright 1988, 103, prophecy 7): Exin coronabitur Germanicus uermis et aeneus princeps humabitur ‘Then the Germanic worm will be crowned, and the prince of bronze buried’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 146). Gunnlaugr’s elaboration on the passing of the bronze prince raises the question of whether his copy-text contained the variant reading humiliabitur ‘will be humbled’, found in mss O and M, as also in mss a, H and R of the First Variant Version and the commentary by Alain de Flandres (Wille 2015, 129), rather than the standard reading humabitur ‘will be buried’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147, Wright 1988, 103). Alain explains the bronze horseman allegorically, as representing the British people (Wille 2015, 129), and Gunnlaugr’s understanding, in speaking of this figure climbing down, may have been similar.
References
- Bibliography
- Reeve, Michael D., and Neil Wright. 2007. Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain. An Edition and Translation of De gestis Britonum [Historia regum Britanniae]. Woodbridge: Boydell.
- Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
- Wille, Clara, ed. and trans. 2015. Alain de Flandres, Prophetie und Politik: die Explanatio in Prophetia Merlini Ambrosii des Alanus Flandrensis. Lateinische Sprache und Literatur des Mittelalters 49. Bern: Lang.