Gripla - 20.12.2011, Page 100

GRIPLA100
means of salvation. After paraphrasing the episode in Genesis, with the
insertion in traditionally poetic terms of the idea that the rainbow is not
going to be seen for thirty years before Judgement Day (v. 727 [1453–54]:
ouch hôrt ich sagen daz man sîn nieht insehe drîzzich jâr vor deme suontage
“moreover, I heard that man will not see it at all for thirty years before
Doomsday”),97 the Continental poet goes on explaining the meaning of
the colours of the rainbow:
Daz zeichen ist alsô lusam, daz stât alsô unverborgen,
daz ist gruone unde rôt, daz bezeichent wazzer unde bluot
dei Christe ûz der sîte fluzzen dô si ime mit spere wart durchstochen.
von diu sculen wir miskan zuo dem wazzere den wîn
swenne man die misse singet unde der gotes martere gedenchet:
daz wirt ze wâre ze bluote ûf dem altâre.
Mit deme selben bluote gewinnen wir widere die touffe,
die wir sô dikche vliesen sô wir uns mit sunden bewellen.
die riuwigen zahire, gebent uns die touffe widere,
daz si daz helleviur erleskent, von sunden uns waschent.98
“So beautiful is this token, and so visible,
which is green and red that betoken water and blood
which flowed out from Christ’s side, when he was stabbed with a spear.
Because of this, we have to mix wine with water,
whenever we sing the mass and think of God’s martyrs:
so it is truly changed into blood upon the altar.
With this same blood we further intend the baptism,
which flows upon us so dense because we sway with sins.
the grieved drops give us the baptism again,
and extinguish the fire of hell, wash away our sins.”
97 Traditional poetic features are the opening formula (hôrt ich sagen...), and the standard time
span of ‘thirty years’ – where related Latin exegetical literature usually has forty (cf. for
instance the passage from Petrus Comestor’s Historia scholastica quoted earlier, note 41).
98 The text is quoted from the edition by Kathryn Smits, Die frühmittelhochdeutsche Wiener
Genesis. Kritische Ausgabe mit einem einleitenden Kommentar zur Überlieferung, Philologische
Studien und Quellen 59 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1972), 141 and 143.