Anon Mv II 17VII
Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Máríuvísur II 17’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 713.
‘Vænni muntu várkunn
veita fyrir tár heit
brúði, þó að í barns nauð
bera kunni sorg hier.
Líða svá lífsnauð
láttu, að eg deyi brátt,
ella græði friðarfull
fljóða hjálpin mitt jóð.’
‘Muntu veita vænni brúði várkunn fyrir heit tár, þó að kunni bera sorg hier í nauð barns. Láttu lífsnauð líða, svá að eg deyi brátt, ella græði {friðarfull hjálpin fljóða} jóð mitt.’
‘You will grant the good woman forgiveness for her hot tears, when she could convey sorrow here in the plight of the child. Let the mortal plight [lit. life torment] pass, so that I may die at once, or may {the peaceful help of women} [= Mary] heal my child.’
Mss: 713(87), 721(14r)
Readings: [1] Vænni: ‘Væ[...]’ 721 [3] þó að: so 721, þótti 713 [5] ‑nauð: so 721, tíð 713
Editions: Skj AII, 494, Skj BII, 536, Skald II, 294, Metr. §§ 9B, 10A; Kahle 1898, 41, 100, Sperber 1911, 13, 63, Wrightson 2001, 63.
Notes: [1] vænni (f. dat. sg.) ‘good’: The word is no longer legible in 721 (‘Væ[…]’). Finnur believed he could read vænust (f. nom. sg.) ‘the best one’, in which case this would be a form of address to Mary. — [3] þó að ‘when’: For þó að lit. ‘although’ with a temporal meaning, see LP: þó 8. — [5] lífsnauð ‘mortal plight’: Lífstíð ‘lifetime’ (so 713) is syntactically possible but leaves the l. with illicit aðalhending, and the cpd appears to be a lectio facilior. — [7] græði (3rd pers. sg. pres. subj.) ‘may heal’: Skj B and Skald emend to græð (imp. sg.) ‘heal’ and take friðarfull hjálpin fljóða ‘peaceful help of women’ (ll. 7-8) as an apostrophe to Mary. That translation is also given by Wrightson, although she retains the subj. form of the verb.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
- 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.
- Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.
- Metr. = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1933. ‘Ett kapitel nordisk metrik och textkritik’. ANF 49, 279-94.
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