Note to Anon (FoGT) 33^III

[All]: Stanza 33 is in hrynhent metre. The stanza is obscure in sense until one realises that it follows the Doctrinale’s examples of the figure (Reichling 1893, 177, ll. 2618-23). The first helmingr follows the Doctrinale’s example of a change of grammatical number, between sg. subject and pl. verb, unica facta fuit mulier, quae sunt modo plures ‘woman was made singular, who soon afterwards are many’. Öl-Gefn, sú er nú eru margar, hafði orðið víngarðr ‘The ale-Gefn < = Freyja> [WOMAN], she who now are many, had become a vineyard’ produces a similar example, using a woman-kenning as sg. subject, a f. sg. rel. pron. (sú er) and a pl. verb (eru) plus pl. adj. (margar). In the second helmingr there is an abrupt shift from a 2nd to a 3rd pers. verb, as in the Doctrinale’s nobis parce, deus; nobis lavet ille reatus ‘God, spare us! May he wash [away] guilt from us’. The Icelandic example moves from 2nd pers. vægðu oss ‘spare us’ (l. 6) to 3rd pers. hann þó ‘he washed’ (l. 7). Even the disapproval of the figure expressed very strongly in both the prose and the verse of the Icelandic text finds a more muted parallel in the Lat. ista sed in nostrum mutatio non venit usum ‘but that change does not come into our usage’. However, the disapproval of obscure language in ll. 5-6 of the stanza is not paralleled in the Latin, but may be compared with Anon Lil 98^VII and other C14th poetry rejecting elaborate skaldic diction.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Reichling, Dietrich, ed. 1893. Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei. Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica 12. Berlin: A. Hofmann & Comp. Rpt. 1974. Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series, Studies in the History of Education 11. New York: Burt Franklin.
3. Internal references
4. Martin Chase (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Lilja 98’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 673-5.