Anon Mv II 16^VII

‘Líknarinnar lofað tákn,
líttu hier á barn frítt;
— það er minning — miskunn
mínu holdi gaf þín.
Móðurnafn og minn heiðr
mist hefi eg nú tvist;
vel máttu, björt, böl
bæta mier, frúin sæt.

‘{Lofað tákn líknarinnar}, líttu hier á frítt barn; það er minning; miskunn þín gaf holdi mínu. Móðurnafn og heiðr minn hefi eg nú mist, tvist; máttu vel bæta mier böl, björt, sæt frúin.

‘{Praised sign of compassion} [= Mary], look here at the beautiful child; that is a remembrance; your mercy gave [it] to my flesh. The name of mother and my honour I have now lost, mournful; you can easily put right the misfortune for me, bright, sweet lady.

Mss: 713(87), 721(13v-14r)

Readings: [1] lofað: so 721, lofuð 713    [5] minn heiðr: ‘[...]ieðr’ 721    [7] björt: borið 721    [8] frúin: so 721, meyjan 713

Editions: Skj AII, 494, Skj BII, 536, Skald II, 294, Metr. §19; Kahle 1898, 41, Sperber 1911, 12-13, 63, Wrightson 2001, 62.

Notes: [1] lofað ‘praised’: The adj. modifies tákn (n. nom. sg.) ‘sign’ and lofuð (so 713) is n. pl. — [1] tákn líknarinnar ‘sign of compassion [= Mary]’: For terms of this type, see Schottmann (1973, 66-7). — [3] það er minning ‘that is a remembrance’: The syntax of ll. 3-4 is difficult. In the present edn, það er minning ‘that is a remembrance’ is taken as a separate cl., followed by another main cl. Skj B treats ll. 3-4 as one cl., which is translated as det som din nåde skænkede mit legeme som minde (?) ‘that which your mercy gave my body as a memory (?)’. The syntax of that cl. is unclear. Presumably minning ‘memory’ is taken as a dat. (though one would expect a -u ending), but it is difficult to see what type of construction that could be. Wrightson gives the translation ‘which is a remembrance your mercy gave to my flesh’. Her reading presupposes a relative cl. without rel. particle and dem. (‘a remembrance which your mercy gave to my flesh’). Because the l. starts with an unstressed syllable, Skald reverses the initial w.o. (see Introduction above), but reads minnig er þat, where the adj. minnig (f. nom. sg.) ‘of good memory’ replaces the noun minning ‘remembrance, memory’ (so also Sperber), modifying miskunn (f. nom. sg.) ‘mercy’: ‘which your mercy of good memory gave to my flesh’. — [8] frúin ‘the lady’: Meyjan ‘the Virgin’ (so 713) is syntactically possible, but unmetrical, because the word in penultimate position must be monosyllabic or consist of two short syllables.

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. Schottmann, Hans. 1973. Die isländische Mariendichtung. Untersuchungen zur volkssprachigen Mariendichtung des Mittelalters. Münchner germanistische Beiträge 9. Munich: Fink.
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. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.
8. Metr. = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1933. ‘Ett kapitel nordisk metrik och textkritik’. ANF 49, 279-94.