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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to GunnLeif Merl I 76VIII

[All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 151.122-4; cf. Wright 1988, 106, prophecy 23): Mulieres incessu serpentes fient, et omnis gressus earum superbia replebitur. Renouabuntur castra Veneris, nec cessabunt sagittae Cupidinis uulnerare ‘Women in their movement will become snakes and their every step will be filled with pride. The Fortress of Venus will be renewed, and Cupid’s arrows will not fail to wound’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 150). Geoffrey’s castra Veneris is rendered more generically by Gunnlaugr as kastra kvensemi ‘castles of desire for women’ (cf. I 74 Note to [All]), and he rationalises the reference to Cupid’s arrows. The word kvensemi (or kvennsemi) ‘desire, lust for women’ occurs chiefly in learned texts (ONP: kvensemi, cf. kvensamr; Fritzner: kvennsemi, cf. kvennsamr). The target of disapproval here may be the developing cult of love that was to reach its apogee in the later C12th at the courts of aristocratic women such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Ermengarde of Narbonne (see Cheyette 2001, 237-8, 244-5); Gunnlaugr and his audience could have known of the ethos at Ermengarde’s court from Rv Lv 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 25II.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
  3. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
  4. Cheyette, Frederic L. 2001. Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
  5. 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.
  6. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
  7. Internal references
  8. Judith Jesch (ed.) 2009, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl Kali Kolsson, Lausavísur 15’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 592-3.

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