Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

Anon Lil 27VII

Martin Chase (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Lilja 27’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 593-4.

Anonymous PoemsLilja
262728

text and translation

Leið sigrandi páfugls prýði
pentað innan firmamentum
Gabriél sem geisli sólar
gleðiligur í loft in neðri.
Sendiboði kom sjaufalds anda
— svá er greinanda — að húsi einu;
sannr meydómrinn sat þar inni
sjálft hreinlífið gimsteinn vífa.

Gabriél, sigrandi páfugls prýði, leið sem gleðiligur geisli sólar innan pentað firmamentum í in neðri loft. {Sendiboði sjaufalds anda} kom að einu húsi; þar inni sat sannr meydómrinn, hreinlífið sjálft, gimsteinn vífa; svá er greinanda.
 
‘Gabriel, excelling the peacock’s beauty, moved like a joyful ray of the sun through the ornamented firmament into the lower air. The messenger of the sevenfold Spirit [ANGEL = Gabriel] came to a house; therein sat the true maidenhood, purity itself, the jewel of women; so it is to be told.

notes and context

Gabriel’s willing descent at God’s command recapitulates Lucifer’s unhappy fall in st. 7. Schottmann (1973, 202) cites as a parallel a pseudo-Augustinian Christmas homily: Moxque uolatu rapido secat axem astriferum, nubesque profundas celer adiit, perculsitque lumine noctem. Ipse per medios caeli sinus flammeos artus vibrans, ignito aere fertur; et, ueluti cum pavo uersicolor obiectus radiis multifluos colores pinnis creptitantibus fundit, nunc aureo, nunc roseo nunc uiridi, nunc purpureo mixtus honori décor diem mutat picturis infectum et coloribus uariis ‘And soon, with rapid flight, he flew through the star-bearing heavens, and rapidly approached the dense clouds, and cast light through the night. He moved swiftly through the middle heaven, aflame with burning air, and just as a multicolored peacock displays many changing colors with its rustling wings, splendor mingled with honor transformed the day, coloring it with various hues’ (Barré 1963, 66). — [4]: The alliteration of the l. is on -ligr and lopt.

readings

sources

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.

editions and texts

Skj: Eysteinn Ásgrímsson, Lilja 27: AII, 372, BII, 397, Skald II, 216, NN §2629 D.

Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close

Stanza/chapter/text segment

Use the buttons at the top of the page to navigate between stanzas in a poem.

Information tab

Interactive tab

The text and translation are given here, with buttons to toggle whether the text is shown in the verse order or prose word order. Clicking on indiviudal words gives dictionary links, variant readings, kennings and notes, where relevant.

Full text tab

This is the text of the edition in a similar format to how the edition appears in the printed volumes.

Chapter/text segment

This view is also used for chapters and other text segments. Not all the headings shown are relevant to such sections.