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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Mfl 1III

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Máríuflokkr 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 507.

Anonymous PoemsMáríuflokkr
12

text and translation

Knáttu mǫrg á mergjar
mjǫðkarms furu hvarma
hirðsamnaðar himna
hrynregn sali dynja.

{Mǫrg hrynregn hvarma} {furu mjǫðkarms} knáttu dynja á {sali mergjar} {{himna hirð}samnaðar}.
 
‘Many streaming rains of eyelids [TEARS] of the fir-tree of the mead-vessel [WOMAN = Mary] gushed onto the halls of marrow [LIMBS] of the convener of the retinue of the heavens [(lit. ‘heavens’ retinue-convener’) ANGELS > = Christ].

notes and context

This helmingr and the next stanza are cited without intervening prose to illustrate that tears and weeping can be paraphrased as ‘hail, rain, drops, showers, waterfalls of the eyes, cheeks, forehead, eyelids’.

The helmingr, which describes Mary’s lament next to the body of Christ, recalls such later Marian poems as Anon MgrVII, although the diction of Mfl is very different from that of Mgr. The present poem is called flokkr, which means it must have been a long poem without a refrain (stef).

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: Anonyme digte og vers [XII], G [4]. Máríuflokkr 1: AI, 627, BI, 634, Skald I, 308; SnE 1848-87, II, 500, III, 181.

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