Anon Mdr 13^VII

Hrein fyld Máría mildi
mjúk, andvarpa …
til þín, lýðs, á láði
lífsvegr, gumnar fegnir.
Döggva, drottning seggja
dáðvís, paradísar
…eps að geyma
gamals, þó að djöflar hamli.

Hrein, mjúk Máría, fyld mildi, fegnir gumnar á láði andvarpa til þín, lífsvegr lýðs. {Dáðvís drottning seggja}, döggva … paradísar að geyma gamals …, þó að djöflar hamli.

Pure, gentle Mary, filled with grace, joyful men on earth weep for you, life-path of people. {Deed-wise queen of men} [= Mary], bedew … of Paradise to heed old …, though devils may wound.

Mss: B(13v), 399a-bˣ

Readings: [1] Hrein: ‘’ corrected from ‘Heil’ in margin B    [2] andvarpa: so 399a‑bˣ, ‘andu[...]pa’ B    [3] til þín: so 399a‑bˣ, ‘[...]ín’ B;    lýðs: lýðr B    [7] …eps: ‘[...]l(æ)ps’(?) BRydberg    [8] djöflar hamli: ‘‑lar hamle’ added in margin B

Editions: Skj AII, 466, Skj BII, 499, Skald II, 273, NN §2674; Rydberg 1907, 34, 55, Attwood 1996a, 105, 306.

Notes: [All]: B is badly damaged, so earlier transcripts have been consulted to make some sense of the text, including Jón Sigurðsson’s readings in the 444ˣ transcript, and Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s emendation, suggested in a n. to that transcript, to lýðs in l. 3. Both Rydberg and Kock (NN §2674) engage in wholesale reconstruction. — [1] hrein fyld: B’s scribe originally wrote ‘Heil’ (probably the result of confusion with st. 14), but corrected this in the margin to ‘Hrein’. Finnur Jónsson emends to Fylld er in Skj B, doubtless to regularise the metre. — [2] …: B is illegible. Sveinbjörn Egilsson (n. to 444ˣ transcript) suggests emendation to sjúkir (m. nom. pl.) ‘sick’ construed with gumnar ‘men’, which suggestion was also made in a private communication from Finnur Jónsson to Rydberg. Skj B, however, does not attempt to reconstruct the l., while Skald reads sjúkum. — [3] lýðs á láði: B’s reading, lýðr á láði, is possibly contaminated by Leið 30/7. The phrase also occurs at Leið 18/1, where the prep. is af. In each case, the phrase occupies the second part of the odd l. of the couplet and supplies the two alliterating stresses. Skj B retains lýðr. — [4] lífsvegr ‘life-path’: Here interpreted with lýðs ‘of people’ as a kenning-like epithet for Mary. Skj B construes lífs vegr as ‘life’s honour’. — [6] dáðvís paradísar: The vís : paradís rhyme is also exploited in Has 24/6 and Lil 13/4. It is uncertain how paradísar ‘of Paradise’ should be construed here: it could form a Mary-kenning (so Attwood 1996a, 324), dáðvís drottning paradísar ‘deed-wise queen of Paradise [= Mary]’, but that would leave seggja without obvious connections. The rest of the st. is too fragmentary to allow further speculation.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. Attwood, Katrina. 1996a. ‘The Poems of MS AM 757a 4to: An Edition and Contextual Study’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Leeds.
6. Rydberg, Hugo, ed. 1907. ‘Die geistlichen Drápur und Dróttkvættfragmente des Cod. AM 757 4to.’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Lund. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. Internal references
8. Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Leiðarvísan 18’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 156-7.
9. Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Leiðarvísan 30’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 167-8.
10. Martin Chase (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Lilja 13’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 577-8.
11. Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 24’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 93-4.