Anon Vitn 8^VII

Þá tók hann í hennar
hand með elskubandi,
framgreiðandi fríðust
festarorð á lesti:
‘Þú skalt, mektug meyja,
mín innilig kvinna;
virðiz okkr að verða
vóttr Máría og dróttinn.’

Þá tók hann í hand hennar með elskubandi, framgreiðandi fríðust festarorð á lesti: ‘Þú skalt, mektug meyja, mín innilig kvinna; virðiz Máría og dróttinn að verða vóttr okkr.’

Then he took her hand with the bond of love, speaking forth the fairest words of betrothal at last: ‘You shall, mighty maiden, [be] my beloved wife; may Mary and the Lord deign to become [lit. see themselves as becoming] a witness for us two.’

Mss: 713(83-84), 721(12r)

Readings: [6] innilig: so 721, ynnilig 713

Editions: Skj AII, 484, Skj BII, 521, Skald II, 286 NN §1667, Anm.; Kahle 1898, 51, Sperber 1911, 25, 70, Wrightson 2001, 30.

Notes: [2] hand (f. acc. sg.) ‘hand’: For the non-umlauted form, see Schottmann 1973, 351 n. 11. — [2] með elskubandi ‘with the bond of love’: This is taken in a figurative sense (cf. Norw. elskovsbånd ‘ties of love’; see Fritzner: elskuband; Schottmann 1973, 376 and n. 6). Wrightson (2001; 1997c, 124, 133 n. 35) translates it as ‘ring of love’, but the later context shows that he cannot have given her a concrete token of their betrothal at this point. — [3-4]: Cf. Mar (1871, 299): ok hefir fram festar-orð ‘and speaks forth words of betrothal’. — [4] á lesti ‘at last’: Skj B construes this prepositional phrase with the verb tók ‘took’ (‘at last he took’) (l. 1), which is less satisfactory from the point of view of w.o. — [5] mektug ‘mighty’: This is a late loanword from MLG mechtich ‘mighty’ (see AEW: mekt). — [6] innilig ‘beloved’: The 713 reading ynnilig ‘beloved’ appears to be a lectio facilior. The form innilig is supported by the internal rhyme ([y] did not unround to [i] until C16th; see ANG §144), and the rhymes -ín : -inn- form skothending rather than aðalhending. — [7] að verða ‘to become’: Skj B takes this inf. with the first cl.: þú skalt að verða ‘you are to become’. However, it makes more sense syntactically to construe it with virðiz ‘deign’ in the second cl., leaving the first cl. with a suppressed verb vera ‘be’ (see NN §1667, Anm.).

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
6. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
7. Schottmann, Hans. 1973. Die isländische Mariendichtung. Untersuchungen zur volkssprachigen Mariendichtung des Mittelalters. Münchner germanistische Beiträge 9. Munich: Fink.
8. Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.