Anon Alpost 10^VII

Giftu giefr með kröftum
guðspjallamaðr snjalla
mildr Mathéas öldum;
miskunnar guðs unni.
Hann var særðr með sverði
siðar í kirkju miðri;
veiti hann virðum mætum
væna hjálp í bænum.
Hier er Mathéas minni
mjög þekkiligt inni.

Mildr guðspjallamaðr Mathéas giefr öldum snjalla giftu með kröftum; unni guðs miskunnar. Hann var særðr með sverði í miðri kirkju siðar; veiti hann mætum virðum væna hjálp í bænum. Mathéas minni er mjög þekkiligt hier inni.

The gentle evangelist Matthew gives people resounding good fortune with miracles; he granted [them] God’s mercy. He was mortally wounded with a sword in the middle of ‘the church of faith’. May he grant to worthy men fair help in their prayers. Matthew’s memorial toast is very agreeable herein.

Mss: 721(15v)

Editions: Skj AII, 511, Skj BII, 561, Skald II, 307-8, NN §§1761, 3376B.

Notes: [1, 3] mildr ... Mathéas giefr öldum ... giftu með kröftum ‘gentle ... Matthew gives people ... good fortune with miracles’: Kock (NN §3376B) objects to the interpretation provided by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), that Matthew ‘gives good fortune with strength to people’. He points out that með kröftum here is more likely to mean ‘with mighty works, miracles’, through which the saint affords the faithful ‘good fortune’, i.e. assistance or remedies for their ills. (Cf. Fritzner: kraptr 3; LP: kraptr and see Ant 76/24, where kraptr translates miraculum in a rendering of Matt. VII.22). — [2, 3] guðspjallamaðr Mathéas: On S. Matthew the Apostle, see Cross and Livingstone 1983, 890; Widding, Bekker-Nielsen and Shook 1963, 324-5; Kilström 1966a, 505; Foote 1976, 168-9; Cormack 1994, 131, 243. — [5] hann var særðr með sverði ‘he was mortally wounded with a sword’: A sword or halberd is the iconographic symbol of Matthew’s martyrdom (see Kilström 1956, 175; Roeder 1956, 23). Occasionally the saint is represented with a sword piercing his back (Braun 1943, 523 [Abb. 280], 525; Foote 1976, 169), a detail which appears in most descriptions of the saint’s death at the hands of a king named Hyrtacus (see Cross 1979, 169); cf. the Auctaria (‘Supplements’) to the Martyrology of Usuard: Hircatus [sic] ... apostolum Matthæum ... gladio a tergo percuti fecit et martyrem Christi consecravit ‘Hyrtacus ... had the Apostle Matthew ... cut down from behind with a sword and consecrated him as a martyr of Christ’ (Usuardus Sangermanensis, Martyrologium, col. 493A). The list of Apostles in Holm perg 5 fol, 59vb likewise records that Matthew was med sverdi stangadr ꜳ baki ‘stabbed in the back with a sword’ (Foote 1976, 154, 168-9); cf. AM 764 4°, 16v. — [6] í miðri kirkju siðar ‘in the middle of ‘the church of faith’ (? i.e. a Christian church)’: A reading proposed by Kock (NN §1761), literally ‘in the middle of the church of the (new) faith’ (i.e. ‘in the middle of a Christian church’). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) would remove siðar from its immediate context and read it as part of a cl. siðar ... virðum mætum (ll. 6, 7), and he interprets siðar with ll. 7-8: ‘May he grant men excellent in their faith good help in their prayers’. Kock argues that removing siðar from what appears to be a separate cl. in ll. 5-6 requires a syntactical construction which is inconsistent with the prosaic style of the rest of the poem. Meissner (1930, 232) objects to the collocation kirkja siðar ‘church of the (new) faith’, and would instead emend siðar to síðarr ‘later’ in order to read the l. ‘He was later stabbed ... in the middle of a church’. However, as Meissner admits himself, this emendation violates the required aðalhending. The detail that Matthew was stabbed ‘in a church’ is included in the Passio Sancti Mathei Apostoli et Evangelistae (Mombr., II, 263: in ecclesia; cf. Mth¹ˣ 805/34; Mth¹Frg 811/37: i kirkiu / kirkio).

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. 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.
6. Braun, Joseph. 1943. Tracht und Attribute der Heiligen in der deutschen Kunst. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung.
7. Cormack, Margaret. 1994a. The Saints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400. Studia Hagiographica 78. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes.
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10. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
11. Kilström, B. I. 1956. ‘Apostelframställningar’. KLNM 1, 173-6.
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14. Ant = Antóníuss saga. In Unger 1877, I, 55-121.