Anon Mv I 27^VII

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 við 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 við 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.

Mss: 721(13v), 1032ˣ(93v)

Readings: [4] svá: ‘...’ 721FJ, ‘[...]’ 721, ‘...’ 1032ˣ;    lífi: so 1032ˣ, ‘[...]’ 721FJ, ‘[...]fi’ 721    [5] mestrar: ‘mestrar’(?) 721FJ, ‘me[...]ar’ 721, ‘meztar’ three dots or short strokes under ‑zt‑ 1032ˣ    [8] við: við(?) 721FJ, ‘v[...]’ 721, ‘...’ 1032ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 491, Skj BII, 532, Skald II, 291-2, NN §1690; Kahle 1898, 37, 99, Sperber 1911, 7, 61, Wrightson 2001, 53.

Notes: [All]: 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. — [4] svá lífi ‘thus the life’: The first letters are torn off in 721. The <í> in lífi is ensured by the internal rhyme (-íf- : -íf-). 1032ˣ has lífi ‘life’, and that reading is adopted by Kahle, Sperber and Wrightson. Skj B and Skald supply vífi ‘woman’. For hlífa lífi ‘save the life’ see st. 20/8 above. — [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. — [8] við ‘against, directed at’: The last two letters are illegible in 721, but Finnur thought he could read við. ‘The fire directed at our souls’ is the fire of hell awaiting damned souls.

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. Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
6. 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.
7. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
8. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.
9. Internal references
10. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Máríuvísur II 23’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 716-17.
11. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Máríuvísur III 29’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 737.