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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Nikdr 1III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Nikulásdrápa 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 566.

Anonymous PoemsNikulásdrápa
12

text and translation

Firð stóð í bygð breiðri
borg Pátera sorgum,
mest áðr lýðr frá losta
lítt gættr í bý fættiz.

Páteraborg, firð sorgum, stóð í breiðri bygð, áðr lýðr, lítt gættr frá losta, fættiz mest í bý.
 
‘The city of Patara, removed from sorrows, stood in a broad settlement, until the people, not at all guarded against lust, diminished greatly in the town.

notes and context

The author of FoGT cites this helmingr to illustrate the rhetorical figure of topographia, the description of, or reference to, a specific place, here the city of Patara in Lycia.

This stanza bears some resemblance to ch. 12 of Bergr Sokkason’s C14th Nikulás saga erkibiskups (Unger 1877 II, 60-1). The relevant passages are quoted in FoGT 1884, 243-4. SnE 1848-87, II, 194-5 cites sts 7-10 from the priest Hallur’s Nikulásdrápa on the same subject. The background story is that the sinful and depraved people of the wealthy city of Patara were harrassed by a basilisk, sent by God on account of their sins, an episode that forms a prelude to the legend’s account of the birth of the saintly Nicholas. To judge from its position in the narrative sequence of the legend of S. Nicholas, the subject of this stanza would have been treated either late in the drápa’s introduction (upphaf), probably after some reference to the poet’s devotion to God or S. Nicholas, or shortly after the first refrain (see Context to st. 2 below).

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 [XIII], C. [2]. Nikulásdrápa 3: AII, 160, BII, 175, Skald II, 92, NN §2334; SnE 1848-87, II, 194-5, III, 154, FoGT 1884, 122, 243-4, FoGT 2004, 32, 60, 90-1, FoGT 2014, 4-5, 57-8.

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