Guðs var mær ok móðir
mána hauðrs við dauða
hýr með hjarta sáru
hildings ok píningar.
Víst bar víf it hæsta
vátar kiðr af gráti,
sonr, þá er sárr af benjum
siðnenninn dó hennar.
Hýr mær ok móðir guðs var með sáru hjarta við dauða ok píningar hildings mána hauðrs. Víst bar it hæsta víf kiðr vátar af gráti, þá er hennar siðnenninn sonr dó, sárr af benjum.
The mild maiden and mother of God [= Mary] was with a sore heart at the death and torments of the king of the moon’s land [SKY/HEAVEN > = God (= Christ)]. Certainly the highest woman bore cheeks wet from weeping when her virtue-striving son died, sore from wounds.
[3] hýr ‘mild’: Construing the adj. as predicate and translating it as ‘glad’, Skj B and Skald add the neg. particle ‘-a’ to var ‘was’ (l. 1), i.e., ‘[Mary] was not happy at the death ...’. This is unnecessary if the adj. is considered attributive to mær ‘maid’; and, indeed, adding the particle runs the danger of making l. 1 seem initially to suggest that ‘God’s mother was not a maiden’. The sense ‘mild’ or ‘kindly disposed’ is not uncommon; hýrr can be synonymous with mildr and hlýrr, both of which qualify Mary elsewhere (e.g. Mdr 1/1 and Geisl 32/6-7). This meaning is also found in the OIcel. homily on the Circumcision: bergia oc siá hve hyʀ drótteɴ es ‘taste and see how mild/kind the Lord is’ (HómÍsl 1993, 27v; HómÍsl 1872, 56).