Anon Lil 89VII/5 — herbergi ‘lodging’
Þú ert hreinlífis dygðar dúfa,
dóttir guðs, og lækning sótta,
giftu vegr, og geisli lofta,
gimsteinn brúða og drotning himna,
guðs herbergi og gleyming sorga,
gleðinnar past og eyðing lasta,
líknar æðr og lífgan þjóða,
loflig mær, þú ert einglum hæri.
Þú ert dúfa dygðar hreinlífis, dóttir guðs og lækning sótta, vegr giftu og geisli lofta, gimsteinn brúða og drotning himna, herbergi guðs og gleyming sorga, past gleðinnar og eyðing lasta, æðr líknar og lífgan þjóða, loflig mær, þú ert hæri einglum.
You are the dove of the virtue of chastity, daughter of God and healing of sicknesses, path of good fortune and light-beam of the skies, jewel of women and queen of the heavens, God’s lodging and forgetting of sorrows, nourishment of gladness and elimination of sins, vein of mercy and life-giver of peoples, praiseworthy maiden, you are higher than the angels.
notes
[5] guðs herbergi ‘God’s lodging’: Cf. e.g. the hymn Quæ est ista: Hæc est, in quo se reclinat / Rex, reclinatorium, / Viatori, dum declinat, / Hæc est diversorium / Caput super hanc inclinat / Non habens tugurium / Rex æternæ gloriæ; / Ha, quam dulcis est memoriæ, / Mater tam laudabilis ‘This is she, in whom the king reclines, the couch for the traveller, while he rests, this is the lodging where the king of eternal glory rests his head, not having a cottage; how sweet is the thought, mother so praiseworthy’ (AH 9, 58-9). The prayer to Mary in HómÍsl 1993, 90v calls her herbirge heilagſ anda ‘lodging of the Holy Spirit’. The sense is not just that Mary was filled with God or the Spirit in a general sense, but that she conceived her child by the Holy Spirit and thus became the Mother of God.