Anon (FoGT) 43^III

These three dróttkvætt stanzas are inserted, one after the other, to exemplify the figure called simatrismos (the Graecismus gives the correct form synacrismos), which FoGT defines as the union of praise and faults in one chapter or clause or verse in Latin and in one stanza or more in Old Norse. This figure is not treated in the Doctrinale, but is present in the Graecismus (Wrobel 1887, 6-7, ll. 63-4). Longo (FoGT 2004, 223 n. 93) has noted that this figure was a favourite form of amplificatio in poetic treatises of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. All the examples cited in sts 43-5 concern characters from the Old Testament of the Bible, except for the last one, which refers to God; all are of virtues, not vices, and all use forms of the verb lofa ‘praise, extol’ to describe their subjects. Although none of the stanzas displays ‘vices’ and ‘faults’ as far as their content is concerned, all of them do indeed contain a number of stereotyped metrical errors. Stanzas 43/1, 5 and 44/1, 5, 7 all have metrically illicit hendingar on weakly stressed or unstressed lofar ‘praises’ and fully stressed ævi ‘life’ (voiced intervocalic [f] and [v]). In st. 45/1, lofar alliterates (but does not rhyme) and there is suspended resolution in metrical positions 3-4. This line does not correspond to any metrical type attested in Germanic alliterative poetry. Hence it appears that all of these stanzas illustrate the rhetorical figure simatrismos on two different levels: they unite ‘praise’ on the textual level and ‘faults’ on the metrical level.

Ábiels lofar ævi
ómeinsemi hreina;
öld lofar Ienóch mildan
einkiend siðavendni.
Nóe lofaz öflugs ævi
ágætu hreinlæti;
Siem lofar fært til fremdar
fórnarhald um aldir.

Ómeinsemi lofar hreina ævi Ábiels; siðavendni, einkiend öld, lofar mildan Ienóch. Ævi öflugs Nóe lofaz ágætu hreinlæti; fórnarhald, fært til fremdar, lofar Siem um aldir.

Innocence praises the pure life of Abel; integrity of morals, specific to mankind, praises gentle Enoch. The life of powerful Noah is praised on account of extraordinary purity; the observance of sacrifice, performed in honour [of God], will praise Shem forever.

Mss: W(119) (FoGT)

Editions: Skj AII, 167, Skj BII, 184, Skald II, 96, NN §2588; SnE 1848-87, II, 246-7, III, 162, FoGT 1884, 150, 293, FoGT 2004, 56, 80, 158-9, FoGT 2014, 46-7, 139-42.

Notes: [All]: Stanza 43 divides neatly into couplets (fjórðungar), devoting one couplet to the virtues of each of four characters from the Biblical Book of Genesis: Abel, son of Adam and Eve, the victim of the first murder by his brother Cain; Enoch, son of Jared and great-grandfather of Noah (Gen. V.18); Noah himself and his son Shem (Gen. V-IX). The metre is an irregular, couplet-based (fjórðungalok) dróttkvætt (see Introduction above). — [3] mildan Ienóch ‘gentle Enoch’: This Enoch is the figure mentioned in Gen.V.21-4 who lived for three hundred and sixty-five years, walked with God and was eventually taken by him into heaven. — [3, 4] einkiend öld ‘specific to mankind’: Most eds regard öld as dat. sg. ‘to mankind’, though Kock (NN §2588) argues that it is an adverbial acc. meaning ‘for ever’. SnE 1848-87, II, 247 proposed that einkiend meant ‘well known to [all men]’, translating omnibus hominibus nota (cf. Skj B kendte for menneskene ‘known to mankind’), but it is more likely that einkiendr means ‘specific to, belonging to’ (cf. ONP: ²einkenna 2, p. p. einkenndr and 3 ‘specify as belonging to’), i.e. indicating that human beings alone of living creatures have understanding of morality. Cf. LP: einkendr. — [4] siðavendni ‘integrity of morals’: Hap. leg.; cf. the similar cpd siðvendis ‘of uprightness’ in st. 37/2. — [5] Nóe ‘of … Noah’: The Latinate gen. sg. of Nói (see LP: Nói), treated as a monosyllable, with resolution under full stress; Skald has the bisyllabic Nóé, which would be metrically irregular. For Noah’s purity, see Gen. VI.9. — [7-8]: The association of Noah’s son Shem with religious observance alludes to a tradition, originally midrashic, that Shem was the same person as Melchisedech, and that there was a direct line of priesthood from Noah to Aaron, transmitted by primogeniture. Cf. Honorius Augustodunensis, Summa gloria de apostolico et augusto sive de praecellentia sacerdotii prae regno liber, ch. II (PL 172, col. 1260C). The idea goes back at least to Jerome. So far, no direct source in Old Norse has been identified.

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. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Wrobel, I., ed. 1887. Eberhardi Bethuniensis Graecismus. Corpus grammaticorum medii aeui I. Bratislava: G. Koebner.
11. FoGT 2014 = Clunies Ross, Margaret and Jonas Wellendorf, eds. 2014. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
12. Internal references
13. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, The Fourth Grammatical Treatise’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=34> (accessed 7 May 2024)