Anon Mgr 6^VII

Guðs son drakk þín brjóstin bæði,
blessuð mær, að tóktu að færa
tírargjörn af tungu fornri
taldra daga í musterið valda.
Máttugt víf og móðir dróttins,
mætan ofrar himna gæti;
son þinn taldi Síméon þenna
sannan guð og in helga Anna.

{Guðs son} drakk bæði brjóstin þín, blessuð mær, að tóktu, tírargjörn, að færa í musterið valda daga taldra af fornri tungu. Máttugt víf og {móðir dróttins}, ofrar {mætan gæti himna}; Síméon og in helga Anna taldi þenna son þinn sannan guð.

{God’s son} [= Christ] drank from both your breasts, blessed Virgin, whom you, glory-eager, brought into the excellent temple in the days stipulated by the ancient tongue. Mighty lady and {mother of the Lord} [= Mary], you hand over {the glorious guardian of the heavens} [= God (= Christ)]; Simeon and the holy Anna declared this son of yours the true God.

Mss: 713(124), 1032ˣ(59v), 920ˣ(205v)

Readings: [3] tungu: so 1032ˣ, 920ˣ, ‘tung[...]’ 713    [5] móðir: so 1032ˣ, 920ˣ, ‘mó[...]’ 713    [8] Anna: anda with ‘anna’ added above the line 713, anda with ‘anna’ added above the line in a later hand 1032ˣ, anda 920ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 473, Skj BII, 506-7, Skald II, 277, NN §2682; Kahle 1898, 56-7, 104, Sperber 1911, 31, 74, Wrightson 2001, 3.

Notes: [All]: For this episode of the Purification of the Virgin and the presentation of Christ in the temple witnessed by the ancient priest Simeon and the prophetess Anna, see Luke II.22-38. — [1] son (m. nom. sg.) ‘son’: For this nom. form, see ANG §395.1. Mar (1871, 1004) reads hun er su blezada iungfru, er hann fæddi med sinum blezudum briostum ‘she is that blessed Virgin, who fed him with her blessed breasts’. — [2] að tóktu að færa ‘whom you brought’: Lit. ‘whom you began to bring’; so NN §2632. Skj B takes að (indeclinable rel. particle) ‘who’ or ‘whom’ to refer to Mary, not to Christ (for að as a rel. particle, see NS §267b). Wrightson (2001) translates að as ‘until’, but the conjunction að is not attested in that meaning (see NS §265). — [3] af fornri tungu ‘by the ancient tongue’: This refers to the Old Testament, and, more specifically, to the Mosaic law stipulating the period of purification of women after childbirth (see Lev. XII.2-8). See also Mar (1871, 1004): eptir Moyses logum, ok fertugta dag af hans fædzludeigi offradi hann i helgu musteri ‘according to the laws of Moses, and on the fortieth day after his birth handed him over in the holy temple’. Skj B emends fornri ‘ancient’ to fórnir ‘sacrifices’ to provide an object for the verb færa ‘bring’ (l. 2), and translates tírargjörn af tungu as ælskende tungens hæder ‘loving the tongue’s honour’, which makes little sense (see NN §2682). — [4] í musterið valda ‘into the excellent temple’: Wrightson interprets valda (n. acc. sg.) ‘excellent, chosen’ as the acc. of the weak m. noun valdi ‘ruler’ and treats it as the object of the verb færa ‘bring’ (l. 2) (‘brought the ruler into the temple’). — [7] taldi (3rd pers. sg. pret. indic.) ‘declared’: Sg. verb with a pl. subject (see NS §70). — [8] in helga Anna ‘the holy Anna’: A prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, in the temple of Jerusalem (Luke II.36). All mss reads inn helga anda (m. acc. sg.) ‘the Holy Spirit’. As shown by the internal rhyme (-ann : Ann-), this is clearly a scribal error, and in 713 and 1032ˣ the correct word has been entered above the l. (in a later hand in 1032ˣ).

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. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
6. Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
7. Wrightson, Kellinde, ed. 2001. Fourteenth-Century Icelandic Verse on the Virgin Mary: Drápa af Maríugrát, Vitnisvísur af Maríu, Maríuvísur I-III. Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series 14. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
8. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
9. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.
10. Internal references
11. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Annálar’ in Guðrún Nordal (ed.), Poetry on Icelandic History. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 4. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10024> (accessed 26 April 2024)