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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Mv I 27VII

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Máríuvísur I 27’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 697-8.

Anonymous PoemsMáríuvísur I
262728

text and translation

Heyrði sveit, að, sæta
sæt, leystir þú mætrar
hold ór heitum eldi,
hlífandi svá lífi.
minnztu, minnandi mestrar,
meyja guðs, þá er deyjum,
þínum björtum bænum
bál v várum sálum.

Heyrði sveit, að þú, sæt sæta, leystir hold mætrar ór heitum eldi, svá hlífandi lífi. {Meyja guðs}, minnandi mestrar, minnztu björtum bænum þínum bál v sálum várum, þá er deyjum.
 
‘The crowd heard that you, sweet lady, released the flesh of the splendid one from the hot fire, thus protecting [her] life. Virgin of God [= Mary], while remembering the greatest one, remember in your bright prayers the fire directed at our souls when we die.

notes and context

This and the next st. recall the Hail Mary: Ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis nostrae ‘Pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death’. See also Mv II 23 and Mv III 29. — [5-8]: For the present interpretation, see Wrightson. Line 5 is clearly corrupt, and it is difficult to reconstruct. It contains three alliterating staves, and the internal rhymes fall in metrical positions one and two. The reconstruction of the last word of the l. is conjectural. Earlier eds have tried to restore the reading in various ways. Skald reconstructs l. 5 as firr, minnandi mærrar ‘remove, remembering the glorious one’ (see NN §1690). This gives the following reading of the helmingr: ‘Virgin of God, when remembering the glorious one, remove with your bright prayers the fire from our souls when we die’. Skj B emends minnztu to forða ‘save’, but that verb takes the dat. (bál ‘fire’ [l. 8] is in the acc.). Furthermore, the translation ‘save the fire from our souls’ makes little sense. For the verb minnaz (minnztu imp. sg.) ‘remember’ with the acc., see NS §131, Anm.

readings

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 XIV], [B. 4]. Et digt om Marias jærtegn 27: AII, 491, BII, 532, Skald II, 291-2, NN §1690; Kahle 1898, 37, 99, Sperber 1911, 7, 61, Wrightson 2001, 53.

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