Anon Pét 50^VII

Héródes bað báru
brattstíganda rígu
lykja flærða fíkinn
fúss í myrku húsi.
Samnaði saman til himna
sauðum guðs af dauða
andar áðr með hendi
alls virðr góður hirðir.

Héródes, fíkinn flærða, fúss, bað rígu lykja {brattstíganda báru} í myrku húsi. Alls virðr góður hirðir samnaði saman áðr með hendi guðs sauðum til himna af dauða andar.

Herod, hungry for treacheries, eager, ordered with severity that {the walker of the steep wave} [(lit. ‘steep-walker of the wave’) = Peter] be confined in a prison. The completely revered good pastor previously with his hand gathered together God’s sheep to heaven from the death of the soul.

Mss: 621(59v)

Readings: [1] bað: bar 621;    báru: váru 621    [4] fúss: ‘fus’ 621

Editions: Skj AII, 507, Skj BII, 556-7, Skald II, 305, NN §§1753, 1754; Kahle 1898, 89, 112.

Notes: [1-2] brattstíganda báru ‘walker of the steep wave’: Cf. sts 16, 29/2. — [2-4] fíkinn flærða fúss ... rígu ‘hungry for treacheries eager ... with severity’: Ms. ‘fus’ emended to fúss to agree with Héródes (m. nom. sg.). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) takes rígu with fúss and translates: villig til strænghed ‘ready for harshness’. Kock (NN §1753) argues that rígu should instead be taken as an adverbial dat.: ‘with severity’. With free-standing fúss he compares, for example, the OE Genesis B, ll. 442a-3a (in Doane 1991, 216): Angan hine þa gyrwan godes andsaca fus on frætwum ‘eager, an adversary of God began to make himself ready in his war-gear’ (though fus on frætwum is more likely a collocation here: ‘eager in his armour’). — [4] í myrku húsi ‘in a prison’: Lit. ‘in a dark house’. Cf. st. 51/7 myrkvastofa; ‘prison’ Cf. Pétr 72/14-16: let hann gripa sælan Petrum ... var postolinn leiddr i myrkvastofu ok læstr ‘he had the blessed Peter seized … the apostle was taken to a prison and locked in’; Acts XII.1-4 Herodes ... adposuit adprehendere ... Petrum ... quem cum adprehendisset misit in carcerem. ‘Herod … proceeded to take up … Peter … and when he had apprehended him, he cast him into prison.’ — [8] alls virðr góður hirðir ‘the completely revered good pastor’: Kock (NN §1754) objects to adoption of bisyllabic góður here (cf. Note to st. 4/2), and proposes emendation of alls virðr instead: ǫllumvirðr góðr hirðir ‘the good pastor, revered by all’.

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. Doane, A. N., ed. 1991. The Saxon Genesis. An Edition of the West Saxon Genesis B and the Old Saxon Vatican Genesis. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press.
6. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.