Kirsten Wolf (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Heilagra meyja drápa 5’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 894-5.
Sæt Máría gjörði að gráta
gráti mædd í sonarins láti;
lát Júðanna fældi að fljóði;
fljóðið horfði á krossinn rjóðan.
Rjóðandi þá flaut og flóði
flóð táranna niðr um móður,
móðurbrjóstið streingt af stríði
stríðið bar sem eingi síðan.
Sæt Máría, mædd gráti, gjörði að gráta í láti sonarins; lát Júðanna fældi að fljóði; fljóðið horfði á rjóðan krossinn. Rjóðandi flóð táranna flaut og flóði þá niðr um móður; móðurbrjóstið, streingt af stríði, bar stríðið sem eingi síðan.
Sweet Mary, overcome by weeping, wept at the death of the son; the conduct of the Jews mocked the woman; the woman looked at the red Cross. The reddening stream of tears then flowed and streamed down the mother; the mother’s chest, tight from grief, bore the grief like no one since.
Mss: 721(11r), 713(23)
Readings: [3] fældi: feldi 721, 713 [5] þá: þá er 713; og: í 713 [8] eingi: einginn 713
Editions: Skj AII, 527, Skj BII, 583, Skald II, 322, NN §§1839, 2970A.
Notes: [All]: This st. uses a variety of the echoing verse-form that Snorri Sturluson in Ht called iðurmælt ‘repeatedly said’ (SnE 1999, 22). Here the stressed syllable of the final word in l. 1 is repeated (though in a cognate, not the same, word) at the beginning of l. 2; l. 2’s aðalhending changes the stem while maintaining the rhyme, and the new lexeme begins l. 3; this format is repeated through the rest of the st., employing four rhymes in all. Note also that the st. comprises four apposed couplets, allowing the word-play, a type of adnominatio, to suggest a rapid sequence of significant events. This rhetorical ornamentation, which is very like some of the devices employed by the poet of Lil (cf. Foote 1982, 260-3), doubtless reflects the emotional intensity associated with the common medieval motif of Mary standing weeping at the foot of Christ’s Cross. See st. 36, whose subject is S. Margaret, for a similar display. — [5] rjóðandi ‘reddening’: Kock (NN §1839) argues that the participial adj. qualifies flóð n. ‘flood, stream’; Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) has it qualifying móður and translates rjóðandi móður as ‘blushing mother’, but this interpretation ignores the rhetorical force of the echoing verse-form.
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