Gripla - 20.12.2011, Page 63

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CARLA CUCINA
THE RAINBOW ALLEGORY
IN THE OLD ICELANDIC PHYSIOLOGUS
MANUSCRIPT
I
A NEW SEMI-DIPLOMATIC edition and close investigation of a neglected
Old Icelandic homiletic fragment with two different ship allegories, pre-
served in the second booklet of the so-called ‘Physiologus manuscript’ (AM
673 a II, 4to, fols. 8r–9r), has recently demonstrated that patristic exegesis
greatly influenced medieval preachers’ techniques in texts handed on with-
in the Icelandic milieu.1 Both ship allegories start as nautical catalogues,
where parts of the ship are compared with Christian doctrinal elements
or general topics (i.e. the whole ship with the world, the keel with true
faith, the boards with baptism, etc., in the first allegory) or with liturgical
and monastic canon (i.e. the ship with the mass, the oars with the Hours,
the keel with Te Deum etc., in the second allegory). Then, both proceed to
more general expositions, expanding syntax and making use of common
rhetorical devices in order to instruct and convince the audience. Catalogue
texts of this kind are known from patristic writings and, even if none of
them can be taken as the only and direct source of our Icelandic preacher,
my analysis has allowed the background lore to emerge clearly. Moreover,
it was possible to bring to light some scriptural sources and exegetical con-
nections never pointed out before, as well as to show how, in a number of
cases, the homilist was able to combine Christian doctrine and a traditional
1 Cf. Carla Cucina, “En kjǫlrinn jarteinir trú rétta. Incidenza di tropi classici e cristiani sulle
tradizioni anglosassone e scandinava,” RILD. Rivista Italiana di Linguistica e Dialettologia
12 (2010): 25–93, but especially 56–88 (§ 3.2. “Simbolica ‘scomposta’: le parti della nave
nella letteratura omiletica islandese antica”) and 89–93 (APPENDICE). Ship imagery must be
thought of as deeply rooted in Old Icelandic culture: apart from the homiletic production,
various single specimens of allegorical treatment of the ship can also be found within the
Old Icelandic poetical corpus (for instance, in Egill Skalla-Grímsson’s Hǫfuðlausn or in the
Sólarljóð), and some passages from saga literature (for example, from the last sections of
Njála and Laxdœla) exist, in which a metaphorical – traditional or Christian – sense for
the ship need be implied to understand the author’s message properly. For a discussion, see
ibid., 56–66.
Gripla XXII (2011): 63–118.