Anon (FoGT) 13^III

Grænn kvað viðr á víði
— varð skrjúpr í því — djúpan:
‘út man eg rýma …
ríkis míns af þínu.
Betr samir bolr með skrauti
blóms en unnir tómar;
skóg man eg upp yfir ægi
angrlestan rótfesta.’

Grænn viðr kvað á djúpan víði – varð skrjúpr í því –: ‘eg man rýma út … ríkis míns af þínu. Bolr með skrauti blóms samir betr en tómar unnir; eg man rótfesta skóg upp yfir angrlestan ægi.’

The green wood said to the deep sea – in that it was weak –: ‘I want to expand the … of my kingdom from yours. A tree-trunk with ornament of blossom looks better than empty waves; I will fasten a forest by its roots up over the sorrow-damaged ocean.’

Mss: W(113) (FoGT)

Readings: [3] …: ‘[…]’ W    [7] man eg upp: ‘man […]pp’ W

Editions: Skj AII, 164, Skj BII, 181, Skald II, 94; SnE 1848-87, II, 202-3, III, 156, FoGT 1884, 126, 254-5, FoGT 2004, 36, 63, 100-1, FoGT 2014, 10-11, 68.

Context: Stanzas 13 and 14 form a pair, and the full sense of st. 13 cannot be understood before reading st. 14, which follows st. 13 without a break in the prose text. The two stanzas illustrate another type of prosopopoeia, an address from one inanimate entity to another. The prose text introduces st. 13 thus: Frá liflavsvm lvt verðr prosopophia til líflavss lvtar sem seger i barrvk, at sior ok skǫgr bivggvz í grend, ok villdi hvꜳʀ̇ annan vpp taka. Af þi liop sandr isioínn ok eyddi sva hans yfer gang, enn logi brendi vpp allan skoginn. her er sva vm qveðit ‘From a lifeless thing prosopopeia turns to a[nother] lifeless thing, as it says in Baruch, that sea and forest lived close by one another and each wanted to take over the other. For that reason the sand rushed into the sea and so put an end to its presumption, while fire burnt up all the forest. Here poetry is spoken about this’.

Notes: [All]: According to the prose text of FoGT, the pair of stanzas, 13-14, is based upon a passage in the Apocryphal Book of Baruch. After the two stanzas have been cited, the prose text goes on to offer an allegorical interpretation of them: Skógr merker ivða enn sior challdeos. Þioðer þær, sem eyddv ʀiki challdeorum merkia sand, en gvðzpiallig [kenning] elldinn, sv er ístað kom lǫgmaals ivða ‘The forest signifies the Jews, and the sea the Chaldeans; those peoples who destroyed the kingdom of the Chaldeans signify [recte ‘are signified by’] sand, while the evangelical [teaching] which supplanted the law of the Jews signifies [recte ‘is signified by’] fire’. Paasche (1928, 199-200) identified the source of this pair of stanzas, not as from Baruch, but from the apocryphal Apocalypse of Ezra (or Esdras), usually known as 4 Ezra. A passage in ch. 4, verses 13-17 (Charles 1913, II, 565), describes an exchange between the trees of the forest and the sea, each intent upon encroaching upon and destroying the other, but each frustrated by the forces of fire and sand respectively. Paasche (1928, 200) comments that the author of the prose text may have misremembered his source, because there is a somewhat similar passage in Baruch ch. 36. Meissner (1932, 102-4), apparently in ignorance of Paasche’s article, argued that the stanzas were influenced by this very passage (Baruch II, Charles 1913, II, 500), in which Baruch has a dream vision during which a fountain beneath a vine engulfs all but one cedar tree in a forest, the cedar eventually succumbing to fire. Although there is some similarity between the Icelandic stanzas and the Baruch passage, the parallel is not exact. The source, if any, of the allegorical interpretation in the prose text of FoGT has not been identified. — [2] varð skrjúpr í því ‘in that it was weak’: That is, the forest did not foresee that its plan to take over the sea’s territory could lead to its own destruction by fire. — [3] …: Ms. W has a hole here and a word is missing. SnE 1848-87, II, 202 n. 2 conjectured reitu ‘marked out space, territory’ and this has been adopted by all subsequent eds. The word must begin with <r> to alliterate and should be of two syllables (long syllable plus a short enclitic ending). — [7] eg … upp ‘I … up’: Again W has a hole, but sufficient is legible for the missing letters to be supplied with some confidence.

References

1. Bibliography
2. 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.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Charles, R. H., ed. 1913. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Meissner, Rudolf. 1932. ‘Zwei Prophetenzitate in der 4. Gramm. Abhandlung der Snorra Edda’. ZDA 69, 97-106.
8. Paasche, Fredrik. 1928. ‘Esras aabenbaring og Pseudo-Cyprianus i norrön litteratur’. In Brøndum-Nielsen et al. 1928, 199-205.
9. FoGT 2014 = Clunies Ross, Margaret and Jonas Wellendorf, eds. 2014. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
10. Internal references
11. (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 27 April 2024)