Ník Kristdr 1^III

Tveir, hykk, at ber bæri
beitnôrungar — heitnu
stund esa lífs á landi
lǫng — meðal sín á stǫngu.
Þat kníðu ber báðir
— bergr oss trúa — á krossi
— svá hefr aldin goð goldit —
Gýðingr ok heiðingi.

Hykk, at {tveir beitnôrungar} bæri ber meðal sín á stǫngu; stund esa lǫng á heitnu landi lífs. Báðir, Gýðingr ok heiðingi, kníðu þat ber á krossi; trúa bergr oss; svá hefr goð goldit aldin.

I believe that {two ship-nourishers} [SEAFARERS] carried the grape between them on a pole; time is not long in the promised land of life. Both, the Jew and the heathen, oppressed that grape on the cross; faith saves us; thus God has repaid the fruit.

Mss: A(8r), W(111) (TGT)

Readings: [2] heitnu: ‘hettin’ W    [3] esa (‘era’): so W, er A    [6] trúa á: so W, trúa A

Editions: Skj AI, 560, Skj BI, 547, Skald I, 265; SnE 1848-87, II, 186-7, 427, III, 152-3, TGT 1884, 31-2, 117, 236, TGT 1927, 88, 109-10.

Context: The stanza is cited as an example of parabola, i.e. the comparison of two things of a different species (samjafnan tveggja hluta í ójǫfnu kyni, TGT 1927, 88). In this particular case Christ is likened to a grape (see Notes below).

Notes: [All]: The commentary on the stanza proceeds to explain that Christ is likened to that grape which the messengers of the Jews carried from Palestine (af Jórsalalandi) when they were in the wilderness, and the Holy Cross is the pole on which they carried the grape. This refers to the story related in Nm. XIII.24. which describes how Moses sent out scouts from Canaan to explore the surrounding regions. When they came to Neelescol, they cut off a branch and its cluster of grapes, and two men carried it between them on a pole (absciderunt palmiten cum uva sua quem portaverunt in vecte duo viri). — [1] ber ‘the grape’: The commentary in TGT elaborates further on the similarities between Christ and a grape (TGT 1927, 88-9): en svá sem vínberit gefr hinn hæsta drykk til viðrlífis mǫnnum, svá gefr guðs son andligt líf ǫllum réttrúǫndum mǫnnum í úthellingu síns blóðs, þess er hversdagliga snýz af víni ok vatni at hverri rétt sunginni messu ‘and just as the grape provides the most noble drink for the sustenance of people, so does the son of God give spiritual life to all people of the right faith through the pouring out of his blood, which each day is transformed from wine and water at every mass that is sung correctly’. — [2] beitnôrungar ‘ship-nourishers [SEAFARERS]’: Nôrungar occurs as a base-word in kennings for ‘men’, but always in compounds in which the first element serves as the determinant (see LP: nôrungar). The word is etymologically related to Njǫrðr (the name of a god) and the weak verb nœra ‘nourish, refresh’ (AEW: nárungar). ‘Seafarers’ seems an odd choice of referent both for the Jews in the desert and for the tormentors of Christ. — [2, 3] á heitnu landi ‘in the promised land’: Following Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848-87, III), Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 236) assigns this prepositional phrase to the first clause: ‘I believe that two ship-nourishers [SEAFARERS] carried the grape between them on a pole in the promised land’. While that interpretation is possible, it obscures the ambiguity of the parabole, because the first helmingr then refers exclusively to the story in the Old Testament. — [6] trúa ‘faith’: The prep. that follows the noun, á ‘on’, is given in W, but not in A, and it looks as though the phrase trúa á krossi was reanalysed in A as trúa krossi. The line is highly unusual metrically, with elision across a sentence boundary in a Type D-line (cf. Kuhn 1983, 70-2). The A version avoids that, but it is difficult to make sense of syntactically unless krossi is taken as an instr. dat. (kníði krossi ‘oppressed with the cross’) or alternatively as a dat. of place, which is very rare (see NS §117). — [6] á krossi ‘on the cross’: Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848-87, III) takes this with the next clause (svá hefr goð goldit aldin á krossi ‘thus God has repaid the fruit on the cross’), which is also possible. — [7] svá hefr goð goldit aldin ‘thus God has repaid the fruit’: Aldin is the fruit on a tree, not a berry, but it could also be used in religious contexts (see Fritzner: aldin). Here it refers to ‘the grape’, i.e. Christ. — [8] Gýðingr ok heiðingi ‘the Jew and the heathen’: This must refer back to the two ‘seafarers’ (tveir beitnôrungar) in l. 1. The commentary in TGT explains this mixed company as follows (TGT 1927, 89): Tveir menn, er berit báru, merkja tvennar þjóðir, er at váru píningu guðs sonar, þat eru gyðingar ok heiðnir menn ‘The two men, who carried the grape, denote the two races of men who were present at the torment of the son of God, those are the Jews and heathen men’. Hence the heathen were the Romans. — [8] Gýðingr ‘the Jew’: The stem vowel of this noun is usually given as short (Gyðingr), but [y:] is secured by the metre in this line.

References

1. Bibliography
2. TGT 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.
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. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
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. 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.
8. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
9. Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1983. Das Dróttkvætt. Heidelberg: Winter.
10. TGT 1927 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927b. Óláfr Þórðarson: Málhljóða- og málskrúðsrit. Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling. Det kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 13, 2. Copenhagen: Høst.
11. Internal references
12. (forthcoming), ‘ Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, The Third Grammatical Treatise’ in Tarrin Wills (ed.), The Third Grammatical Treatise. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=32> (accessed 20 April 2024)