Anon Mgr 39^VII

‘Grátinn minn,’ kvað jungfrú ítrust,
‘öld várkynni mier,’ með tárum,
‘yndið er með iðran synda
yðvart líf,’ segir gimsteinn vífa.
‘Naðarénus fyrir nauðsyn yðra
náði Jésús dauða bráðum
(sólar konungs) að sínum vilja
(syndalausnar biðið og yndis).’

‘Öld várkynni mier grátinn minn,’ kvað ítrust jungfrú með tárum, ‘yndið er líf yðvart með iðran synda,’ segir gimsteinn vífa. ‘Jésús Naðarénus náði bráðum dauða að vilja sínum fyrir nauðsyn yðra; biðið syndalausnar og yndis {konungs sólar}.’

‘May mankind forgive me for my weeping,’ said the most splendid Virgin with tears, ‘the pleasure lies in [lit. is] your life with repentance of sins,’ says the gemstone of women. ‘Jesus of Nazareth obtained sudden death of his own will because of your need; pray for redemption of sins and the pleasure {of the king of the sun} [= God (= Christ)].’

Mss: 713(127)

Editions: Skj AII, 480, Skj BII, 516, Skald II, 282, NN §§1672, 1673, 2680, Anm.; Kahle 1898, 64, Sperber 1911, 39, 76, Wrightson 2001, 20.

Notes: [All]: Cf. Mar (1871, 1011): ok af þui einu glediandizt, at ek gret fyrir ydar(rar) lausnar sakir, bidiandi ydr kristna menn, at þier gratid ok uorkynnit mier, þuiat fyrir ydarra synda sakir þoldi minn son dauda ok ek þuilikann harm ‘and I was rejoicing for that one reason, that I wept for the sake of your redemption, asking you, Christian people, that you weep and forgive me, because for the sake of your sins my son suffered death and I [suffered] such grief’. This is the last textual parallel to the prose of Mar. Skald ends Mary’s speech at l. 4 (so also Wrightson, but with reservations; see her n. to 39/5-8), whereas Skj B attributes 40/1-8 below to Mary. Because that st. has no parallel in Mar (1871, 1011-12), the attribution is unlikely. — [2] með tárum ‘with tears’: Skj B and Wrightson take this prepositional phrase with the last cl. of the helmingr, as a parallel construction to með iðran synda ‘with repentance of sins’ (l. 3). — [3] yndið er líf yðvart með iðran synda ‘the pleasure lies in [lit. is] your life with repentance of sins’: I.e. human pleasure lies in people leading their lives while repenting of their sins. Skj B and Wrightson connect yndið with yðvart ‘your’, while Skald emends to yndigt ‘pleasurable’. The present interpretation avoids the separation of the elements in the syntactic unit líf yðvart ‘your life’. Also note that the l. has aðalhending (-ynd- : -ynd-) rather than skothending. — [4] gimsteinn vífa ‘the gemstone of women’: For circumlocutions for the Virgin Mary based on Lat. gemma mulierum, virginum ‘gem of women, virgins’, see Schottmann 1973, 60. — [5] Naðarénus ‘of Nazareth’: I.e. Nazarenus. Attested in poetry only here (see LP: Náðarenus). The quantity of the first and the third vowels (short and long) is ensured by the metre. — [7] konungs sólar ‘of the king of the sun’: Sperber and Skj B emend to konung sólar ‘the king of the sun’ as an object of the verb biðið ‘pray’ (l. 8), which is unnecessary (see NN §1673). — [7] að vilja sínum ‘of his own will’: Skald takes this prepositional phrase with the last cl., which is ungrammatical (it would require the possessive hans ‘his’ rather than the reflexive sínum ‘his own’).

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. Schottmann, Hans. 1973. Die isländische Mariendichtung. Untersuchungen zur volkssprachigen Mariendichtung des Mittelalters. Münchner germanistische Beiträge 9. Munich: Fink.
7. Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
8. 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.
9. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.