Note to Ólhv Frag 7^III

[All]: There are three types of antonomasia in Donatus, ab animo ‘by the spirit’, a corpore ‘by the body’ and extrinsecus ‘extrinsically’, in that order. The example for antonomasia ab animo in Donatus (Keil 1855-80, IV, 400) is magnanimusque Anchisiades ‘and the proud son of Anchises [Aeneas]’. This couplet exemplifies the ab animo (af ǫnd) type in TGT but Óláfr’s example is much closer to Donatus’s example of antonomasia extrinsecus (Keil 1855-80, IV, 400), infelix puer atque impar congressus Achilli ‘unhappy boy and unequally matched in his battle with Achilles’. Both refer to narratives in which heroes with supernatural strength (Achilles and Þórr) kill an opponent. This example is followed in Sedulius Scottus’s commentary (CCCM 40B, 381) with the explanation, Infelix puer ipse est Troilus ‘The unhappy boy himself is Troilus’, which is also similar to Óláfr’s commentary (TGT 1927, 78), Hér er grimmhugaðr settr fyrir Þór ‘Here “fierce-minded” stands for Þórr’. Óláfr’s example was probably influenced by the later example of the extrinsecus type of antonomasia in Donatus rather than the more relevant one for the ab animo type. Micillo (1999, 221) sees a correspondence between another Hiberno-Latin commentary and Óláfr’s further comments (TGT 1927, 78-9), Þar er óeiginlig líking, þvíat margir menn aðrir en Þórr váru grimmhugaðir ‘There is an improper comparison because many men other than Þórr were fierce-minded’. Murethach comments on the example Magnanimusque Anchisiades (CCCM 40, 240): similitudo non propria: nam superbus fuit ille, fuerunt et ceteri superbi ‘an improper comparison: because he [Aeneas] was proud, and so were the others’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. CCCM = [Anonymous] Corpus Christianorum. 1971-. Continuatio mediaevalis. Turnhout: Brepols.
3. TGT 1927 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927b. Óláfr Þórðarson: Málhljóða- og málskrúðsrit. Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling. Det kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 13, 2. Copenhagen: Høst.
4. Keil, Heinrich, ed. 1855-80. Grammatici Latini. 8 vols. Leipzig: Teubner.
5. Micillo, Valeria. 1999. ‘Die grammatische Tradition des insularen Mittelalters in Island’. In Poppe et al. 1999, 215-29.
6. Internal references
7. (forthcoming), ‘ Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, The Third Grammatical Treatise’ in Tarrin Wills (ed.), The Third Grammatical Treatise. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=32> (accessed 25 April 2024)