Gripla - 20.12.2011, Page 116

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SUMMARY
The Rainbow Allegory in the Old Icelandic Physiologus Manuscript
Keywords: Old Icelandic homiletic literature, Hauksbók, Rímbegla, colour-
imagery, Christian allegories, biblical exegesis, doctrine of penance, Old German
biblical poetry, Old Irish homilies.
The purpose of this paper is to present a new semi-diplomatic edition with tex-
tual notes and an overall analysis of a short allegorical sermon fragment on the
rainbow preserved in the ‘Physiologus manuscript’ AM 673 a II, 4to, fol. 9v. This
homiletic text, which has been almost completely ignored by scholars, concerns a
trichromatic description and tropological explanation of the rainbow, based on the
biblical episode of Noah’s flood (esp. Gen. 9, 13–16). Two variant versions of it
exist, which are found in Hauksbók and in the so-called Rímbegla, and they are also
taken into account here, together with Christian references to the rainbow within
the whole Old Icelandic literary corpus.
The Old Icelandic rainbow allegory is examined against the Latin-Christian
background of exegetical literature concerning both general colour-imagery and
specific symbolical interpretations of the rainbow, in order to verify possible
sources. Some analogues both in Old German biblical epic poetry and in the Old
Irish and Continental Hiberno-Latin homiletic production are also investigated.