Ritmennt - 01.01.1998, Blaðsíða 104

SIGURÐUR PETURSSON
RITMENNT
Summary
The well-known custom of composing funeral
poems in Latin or in the vernacular was much
practised by the Icelanders in the 17th and 18th
centuries. Funeral poems in Greek were without
doubt less common. Therefore, the discovery of
a funeral poem, composed in Greek elegiac coup-
lets and printed in Copenhagen in 1695, is a wel-
come addition to the study of the mode of life of
the Icelandic learned class. The poem was writ-
ten by the student Torfi Pálsson (1673-1712) in
commemoration of a fellow student and a good
friend, Vigfús Jónsson (1676-94), a member of an
important family in Iceland. Both had just com-
menced their studies at the University of
Copenhagen when Vigfús succumbed to his tra-
gic fate. The language applied in the poem is
heavily influenced by the epic language of
Homer and although it is difficult to say how
original the work of Torfi Pálsson is, it testifies
at least to a well-founded knowledge of Greek
and a certain interest in the Greek heritage that
had been passed on to Icelandic students of that
period. Thus, the untimely death of Vigfús Jóns-
son and the rituals surrounding it, such as the
poem and the painting his parents had made of
him and his brother, left to posterity valuable
proofs of the level of learning of the best edu-
cated Icelanders and of the efforts made by
wellto-do people to cultivate a cosmopolitan
way of life.
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