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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Vitn 5VII

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Vitnisvísur af Máríu 5’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 743.

Anonymous PoemsVitnisvísur af Máríu
456

Síðan nam sætar ástir
seggr við sprund að leggja;
Hlín má hrings af sveini
hvítust sjaldan líta.
Eina stund með yndi
enn var staddr hjá henni
— talaði svinnr við svanna
sveinn — í kirkju einni.

Síðan nam seggr að leggja sætar ástir við sprund; {hvítust Hlín hrings} má sjaldan líta af sveini. Eina stund var enn staddr hjá henni með yndi í einni kirkju; svinnr sveinn talaði við svanna.

Then the man began to develop sweet love [lit. loves] for the woman; {the fairest Hlín <goddess> of the ring} [WOMAN] can seldom look away from the boy. One time [he] was again standing next to her with delight inside a church; the clever boy spoke to the girl.

Mss: 713(83), 721(10v)

Readings: [4] hvítust sjaldan: hvít varliga 721    [5] stund: ‘stun’ 721    [6] enn: hann 713, 721

Editions: Skj AII, 483, Skj BII, 520-1, Skald II, 285; Kahle 1898, 50, 102, Sperber 1911, 24, 70, Wrightson 2001, 29.

Notes: [1]: The l. lacks internal rhyme. — [4] hvítust sjaldan ‘the fairest ... seldom’: The 721 variant, hvít varliga ‘the fair hardly’, is metrically and syntactically possible and has been adopted by Skj B, Skald and Sperber. — [6] enn ‘again’: The ms. reading hann ‘he’ is a lectio facilior and leaves the l. without alliteration and aðalhending. — [8] í einni kirkju ‘inside a church’: This prepositional phrase could also go with the following cl. (so Sperber), but see Mar (1871, 298): einn dag ero þꜹ stødd bęði saman i Mario kirkiutalandiz þar við ‘one day they were both standing together in the Church of Mary … while speaking to each other’.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
  3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
  4. Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
  5. Wrightson, Kellinde, ed. 2001. Fourteenth-Century Icelandic Verse on the Virgin Mary: Drápa af Maríugrát, Vitnisvísur af Maríu, Maríuvísur I-III. Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series 14. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
  6. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.
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