Gripla - 20.12.2011, Page 78

GRIPLA78
for the sake of God. The colour of water signifies the forgiveness
of sins in the baptism; great mildness and no difficulty belong to
it. Sulphur-flame signifies the repentance of sins; great bitterness
belongs to it. § 27. And this threefold wrath of God betokens the
rainbow. It was not seen before Noah’s flood; since then it is seen in
memory of that promise which God made to Noah, that never again
would a flood come to put the world under water like the one which
had been in his day. The colour of fire signifies the forgiveness of
sins in martyrdom for the sake of God; great terror and great radi-
ance belong there.
It is evident that, apart from some differences pertaining mainly to
linguistic features and chronology (AM 730, 4to, which the Rymbegla main
text is based on, dates from 1700–1725), this redaction of the rainbow
allegory is closer to our text than the Hauksbók’s version. Slightly variant
forms may be considered, for instance morphological alternatives like
blyd leiki (OI blíðleiki; cf. blíðleikr) and torvellda (OI torvelda; cf. torveldi), or
the occasional use of the enclytic article in syndanna. The opening phrase
i regnboga – repeated also within the text (beginning of § 26: í regnboga) –
has already been discussed earlier as a possible alternative to á regnboga in
the defective opening passage of our Arnamagnæan sermon fragment.24
In a similar way, the second sentence of § 26 Vatnslitur merker fyrergefning
synda í Skyrn... presents the verb form OI merkir, which we have consider-
ed earlier as an alternative conjectural restoration of the long gap at the
beginning of l. 10 of the manuscript page.25
More interesting from the point of view of textual comparison are
some differences in the choice of words, for example the repetition of
the verb koma in the triple parallel construction of asyndetic paratactical
clauses in § 25 (Vatn kom í Noa flode, brennesteins logie kom yfer Sodomam
og Gomorram, Elldur mun koma yfer allan heim fyrer domsdag), where the
last clause also has mun koma, while the Physiologus manuscript and the
Hauksbók lesson is mun (respectively man) ganga. The compound fyrerheits
(OI fyrirheits [sg. gen.], for the simple noun heits [sg. gen.] attested both in
our text and in Hauksbók), seems to point to a more specifically Christian
24 Cf. above, the relevant item in the textual notes, and note 18.
25 Cf. above, the relevant item in the textual notes.