Anon (FoGT) 35^III

Píndr reis upp með anda
angrleystu herfangi;
hlýrna gramr til himna
heim sótti guð dróttin*.
Sendi ástaranda
alls hirðandi virðum;
sá kemr drótt að dæma
dauða lífs á hauðri.

Píndr reis upp með angrleystu herfangi anda; {gramr hlýrna} sótti guð dróttin* heim til himna. {Hirðandi alls} sendi virðum ástaranda; sá kemr að dæma drótt dauða á hauðri lífs.

Tortured, he rose up with the sorrow-liberated booty of souls; {the prince of heavenly bodies} [= God (= Christ)] came home to the Lord God in the heavens. {The carer of everything} [= God] sent the spirit of love to men; he will come to judge the host of the dead on the land of life.

Mss: W(117) (FoGT)

Readings: [4] dróttin*: dróttinn W

Editions: Skj AII, 165, Skj BII, 182, Skald II, 95, NN §3164; SnE 1848-87, II, 234-5, III, 161, FoGT 1884, 144, 287-8, FoGT 2004, 51, 75, 147-9, FoGT 2014, 36-7, 125-6.

Context: Stanza 35 follows st. 34 without any prose introduction. The two stanzas form a diptych and have to be understood together.

Notes: [All]: After st. 35 the prose text offers the view that sts 34-5 present avarp theologie ‘a summary of the Bible’ in two dróttkvætt stanzas. The same use of fjórðungalok appears in both, as well as a similar disposition of kennings. In st. 35 the poet balances the main events, theologically speaking, of Christ’s life on earth before the crucifixion, the subject of st. 34, with the major events that took place after it. Lines 1-2 allude to Christ’s Harrowing of Hell and his Resurrection, which lifts the burden of sin from mankind; ll. 3-4 celebrate his Ascension to heaven, ll. 5-6 the descent of the Holy Spirit to mankind at Pentecost, while ll. 7-8 are about the Last Judgement. The poet’s boast to have encapsulated avarp theologie in two stanzas is well taken. As both Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884, 143 n.) and Longo (FoGT 2004, 214-15) have pointed out, his model was almost certainly various commentaries on the Doctrinale and the Doctrinale itself (Reichling 1893, 177, ll. 2623-6 and nn.), where oliopomenon is said to be a figure in which a series of important events is expressed in few words, and the example is given of a series of short clauses encapsulating the history of the Trojan war. — [1-2] með angrleystu herfangi anda ‘with the sorrow-liberated booty of souls’: As FoGT 1884, 287 n. 2 and FoGT 2004, 148 have noted, the first three words of l. 1 píndr reis upp ‘tortured he rose up’ refer to Christ’s Resurrection. The phrase með angrleystu herfangi anda ‘with the sorrow-liberated booty of souls’ alludes to Christ’s release of souls after his Harrowing of Hell. — [5] ástaranda ‘the spirit of love’: The Holy Spirit; the cpd is a hap. leg. — [7-8] sá kemr að dæma drótt dauða á hauðri lífs ‘he will come to judge the host of the dead on the land of life’: This edn follows the interpretation of these lines offered by Kock (NN §3164) as the only one that respects the couplet structure of the stanza and also makes theological sense. There is no doubt that these lines allude to the Last Judgement, in which case ‘on the land of life’ may mean ‘in Paradise’. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) construed lífs á hauðri (l. 8) with hirðandi alls (l. 6) to produce the sense ‘the guardian of all life on earth’, but this violates the couplet-based syntax of the stanza and is therefore unlikely to be correct. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884) emended the text by adding ok between dauða and lífs in l. 8 (sá kemr at dæma drótt dauða ok lífs á hauðri ‘he will come to judge the host of death [the dead] and life [the living] on earth’), but this produces an unmetrical line and rather strained syntax, and must also be rejected.

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. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. FoGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
7. FoGT 2004 = Longo, Michele, ed. [2004]. ‘Il Quarto Trattato Grammaticale Islandese: Testo, Traduzione e Commento’. Dottorato di Ricerca in ‘Linguistica Sincronica e Diacronica’ (XV Ciclo). Palermo: Università degli Studi di Palermo, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia.
8. 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.
9. FoGT 2014 = Clunies Ross, Margaret and Jonas Wellendorf, eds. 2014. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.