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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Líkn 37VII/6 — last ‘sin’

Sæfðu lamb guðs lofðar
ljóst (hafa þess í brjóstum)
ok ert enn í slíku
altári (lög sára),
því at lautviðir létu
lastbundnir helgasta
linns, þá er lausn gaf mönnum,
lífs fórn á þik borna.

Lofðar sæfðu ljóst lamb guðs — hafa þess lög sára í brjóstum — ok ert enn altári í slíku, því at lastbundnirlinns lautviðir létu helgasta fórn lífs, þá er gaf mönnum lausn, borna á þik.

Men slaughtered the radiant Lamb of God — they have its sea of wounds [BLOOD] in their breasts — and you are still an altar in such [offering], for sin-bound trees of the serpent’s dell [(lit. ‘dell-trees of the serpent’) GOLD > MEN] caused the holiest sacrifice of life, that which gave men liberation, to be placed upon you.

notes

[6, 5, 7] lastbundnir lautviðir linns ‘sin-bound dell-trees of the serpent [GOLD > MEN]’: Laut ‘dell’, is a small, wooded hollow or valley, by extension simply ‘land’. Analogous to lastbundnir ‘sin-bound’ is bönd glæpa ‘bonds of sin’ 30/1-2 (cf. Prov. V.22). The combination here of tree, serpent, and sin may be consciously intended to evoke the fall of Adam. If so, the st. has an implicit typological structure, counterbalancing Adam (figura Christi, Rom. V.14) with Christ (the New Adam, 1 Cor. XV.45-9), the Tree of Knowledge with the Tree of Life (the Cross), and original sin with its remedy through the atonement of Christ, the helgasta fórn lífs ‘holiest sacrifice of life’ (ll. 6, 8). From Origen forward, the exegetical and iconographic tradition has placed Adam’s grave (as represented by a skull, see Kirschbaum et al. 1968-76, IV, 343) on Calvary at the foot of the Cross, so that the blood of the Second Adam pours over the first, prefiguring for Adam and his posterity liberation from death and the effects of sin.

kennings

grammar

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