Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 198

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Arni Einarsson
that it is a product of the first male and female numbers (three and two).46 A
possible interpretation of the six brothers would be that they, by aligning with
King Olaf s body in two groups of three, make him a symbol of fertility or
prosperity and emphasize his association with creation. The six brothers may at
the same time symbolize the six days of creation and the six ages of the world.47
Another aspect of the number six should also be considered. The sun forms a
midpoint in the row of seven planets, a “fact” discussed by Macrobius (Commen-
tary 1.19), mentioned by Bernardus Silvestris (Cosmographia: Microcosmos, Ch.
I) and illustrated in a vision (Scivias) of St. Hildegard of Bingen (cf. Maurmann
1976, Plate 3). The six brothers may be embodiments of the six planets, three
above the sun, which would be personified by the king, and three below. The sun
was commonly viewed as a king that governed the planets in their courses. The
retrograde movements of the outer planets were for instance attributed to the
influence of the sun. This is further elucidated by Macrobius (Saturnalia 1.17.2):
For if the sun, as men ofold believed, “guides and directs the rest of the heavenly lights”
and alone presides over the planets in their courses, and if the movements of the planets
themselves have power, as some think, to determine or (as it is agreed that Plotinus
held) to foretell the sequence of human destinies, then we have to admit that the sun,
as directing the powers that direct our affairs, is the author of all that goes on around
A Tripartite House
The king and his people were distributed between three parts of the house: the
king slept in the central ring, the nobility and clerics in the next ring, and the
common courtiers in the third concentric ring. This arrangement recalls the
Platonic ideaofthe tripartite society, originally in Plato’s Republic (412-417) but
transmitted to the Middle Ages mainly by Calcidius’ Commentary on the Timaeus.
In the Platonic city-state the most prudent and wise men dwell in the highest
places and give the orders. Soldiers carry out the orders and the masses furnish
Philo Judaeus on the number six: “We may say that it is in its nature both male and female, and
is a result of the distinctive power of either. For among things that are, it is the odd that is male,
and the even female. Now of odd numbers three is the starting point, and of even numbers two,
and the product of these two is six. For it was requisite that the world, being most perfect of all
things that have come into existence, should be constituted in accordance with a perfect number,
namely six; and, in as much as it was to have in itself beings that sprang from a coupling together,
should receive the impress of a mixed number, namely the first in which odd and even were
combined, one that should contain the essential principle both of the male that sows and of the
female that receives the seed” (De Opificio Mundi 13-14, tr. Colson and Whitaker 1929).
47 Ps.-lamblichus Theology of Arithmetic (p. 76, tr. Waterfield 1988) says that “the universe is
ensouled and harmonized” by the number six, and Eriugena (Periphyseon III, tr. Sheldon-Wil-
liams and O’Meara 1987) that “the whole world is contained in the perfection of the number
six.”
/tfi The nested quotation is from Cicero, De re publica 6.17. St. Hildegard spoke about princeps
and rexsol (Maurmann 1976, p. 32). Cf. also Alan ofLille Plaint ofNature Prose 1 (p. 84).