Gripla - 20.12.2018, Side 48

GRIPLA48
known in medieval Europe; it gained the status of an authoritative work
and appears in many medieval manuscripts, the earliest one dating from
the eighth or ninth century.60 An edition of the Letter, based on seven
manuscripts, was published in 1894, edited by Valentine rose.61
The sources of items 1 and 2
the biggest part of the physiological section of Af natturu mannzins ok
bloði seems to derive from Vindician’s Letter. to facilitate comparison and
discussion, the physiological part is here printed in its entirety but has
been divided into sections with numbers from 1 to 10. Items 1 and 2 do not
correlate directly to Vindician’s Letter, while 3–10 do so rather closely. We
will therefore begin by discussing items 1 and 2 separately, followed by a
comparison of the old norse and Latin versions of items 3–10.
Af natturu mannzins ok bloði
1. Maðrinn hefír i ser likinði .iiijra hofuðskepna. ok má þat marka a
æða bloði mannz ef þat stendr vm stund i keralldí. þa er þat með
.íííj. litum. efzt er rauða bloð elldi likt. ok at nátturu heítt ok þurt.
Þar næst er rauðbrúnt bloð likt lóptínv at vokua ok verma. neðzt
er melannkolea suarta bloð iỏrðu likt at lít at nátturu þurri ok ka-
lldri. Þa er flemína vatni likt af vátri nátturv ok kalldri. ok stendr
þat vmhverfis bloðit sua sem hit mikla haf rennr vm iarðar kringlu.
Enn ef skerst bloðlifrin þa rennr vatn er menn kalla vara i staðinn
sem haf rennr landanna a meðal (181:15–24).62
60 for a (non-exhaustive) list of medieval manuscripts of the Letter, see Valentin Rose
(ed.), Theodori Prisciani Euporiston..., Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et romanorum
teubneriana (Leipzig: teubner, 1894), 484; on its dissemination and influence, see Klaus-
Dietrich fischer, “the “Isagoge” of Pseudo-Soranus: an analysis of the Contents of a
Medieval Introduction to the art of Medicine,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 35 (2000): 9;
Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy, 112. for examples of how the let-
ter was presumably used as a source for other popular texts in the Middle ages, see, e.g.,
Saturn and Melancholy, 107–09, 114, 118. as a source for Bede, see Wallis, “Introduction/
Commentary,” lxxxiii. on the close paraphrasing of the letter in oxford-St. John’s College
MS 17, see faith Wallis, “1. Medicine I: 1. Humours (1)” The Calendar and the Cloister. For
Vindician as a source for the Pseudo-Soranus text, see Jouanna, “Legacy of the Hippocratic
treatise,” 350; and further in his article “La théorie des quatre humeurs.” He notes that par-
allel texts exist in arabic, armenian and Hebrew, see “Legacy of the Hippocratic treatise,”
348.
61 Vindicianus afer, Epistula ad Pentadium, 484–92.
62 the text is printed from Eiríkur Jónsson and finnur Jónsson’s edition of Hauksbók, page
and line numbers in parenthesis refer to this edition.