Note to Anon Lil 71VII
[4] súthrærandi ‘grievous’: Lit. ‘exciting grief’. The epithet can be applied either to sárin og píslafæri ‘wounds and instruments of torture’ or to Jésú. The alternative reading for sút, sín, yields the sentence Jésús hrærandi sín píslarfæri ‘Jesus, raising up his torture-tools, i.e. showing the instruments with which he was tortured’ (JH). The image is an allusion to Rev. I.7: ecce venit cum nubibus et videbit eum omnis oculus et qui eum pupugerunt et plangent se super eum omnes tribus terrae ‘behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him: and they also that pierced him. And all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves because of him’. In medieval literature and art, this image is often expanded to include the showing of the instruments used to torture Jesus. Cf. similar treatments in Has 33/5-8 and Líkn 27.
References
- Internal references
- George S. Tate (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Líknarbraut 27’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 257-8.
- Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 33’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 101-2.