Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1943, Síða 164

160
ting in verse the history of the Passion. Then he began
to collect material for them. Every Lent he had to preach
on the history of the Passion, and that he was preoccupied
with this subject may be seen, among other things, from
the fact that he writes shorter cycles in verse on the
history of Passion.
There is good authority for assuming that Hallgrímur
Pétursson wrote the chief bulk of his hymns on the books
of Samuel during the year 1656. He finishes the first book
and starts on the second. Suddenly, in the middle of the
third hymn, nay, in the middle of General Abner’s speech,
he stops abruptly. Before this time he had not yet started
on the hymns, although he had them constantly in mind.
He certainly did not shelve them for the sake of versifying
the narratives of the books of Samuel. This work there-
fore was not commenced until 1657.
What was the reason of Hallgr. Pétursson’s so suddenly
dropping the hymns of Samuel? It is as if the pen fell
from his hand. Some unimportant incident might have
been the cause, but now one’s imagination is fired. Some-
thing stupendous must have happened that he should not
even finish the hymn on which he was working, some-
thing that shook him profoundly, something that clutches
at his throat and paralyses him, something that says:
nunc aut nunquam, now or never you shall fulfill your
solemn vow to your Saviour and Lord. What could this be?
As everybody knows Hallgrímur died of leprosy, 60
years of age in 1674. The authorities say that the disease
showed itself about 1664—65, but this is very improbable.
This disease usually takes twenty years, and sometimes
much longer, from the moment it breaks out, until it
finally kills its victim. Many things go to show that Pét-
ursson’s disease was very slow. He attended the Althing
regularly and disharged many official duties for a num-
ber of years, keeping sight and hearing towards the close
of his life. On the other hand he wanted to resign on ac-
count of his disease in 1667, although he did not manage
to do so until 1669. It is therefore almost unthinkable that