Lorsch bee blessing
The Lorsch bee blessing is one of the oldest rhyming poems in the German language. The Old High German blessing was written upside down in the 10th century at the bottom of a page of the apocryphal Visio St. Pauli from the early 9th century . The manuscript was created in the Middle or Upper Rhine area and was kept in Lorsch Abbey from around 900 ; the bee's blessing was probably registered there in the 10th century. In the 16th century the manuscript found its way into the Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg. Since 1623 it has been kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana under the signature Codex Pal (atinus) lat (inus) 220 . The bees' blessing can be found there as an upside-down supplement in the open space below the text area on fol. 58r.
The saying was supposed to call back a swarming bee colony to a beehive . English linguists have noted similarities with the Old English bee blessing Charm wiþ ymbe .
text
- Kirst, imbi is hot
- Nû fliuc dû, vihu mînaz, hera
- Fridu frôno in munt godes
- gisunt heim zi comonne
- Sizi, sizi, bîna
- Inbôt you sancte Maria
- Hurolob ni have you
- Zi holce ni flûc dû
- Noh dû me nindrinnês
- Noh dû me nintuuinnêst
- Sizi vilu stillo
- Uuirki godes uuillon
translation
- Christ, the swarm of bees is out here!
- Now fly, you my bees, come.
- In the peace of the Lord, under the protection of God
- come back healthy.
- Sit, sit, bees.
- The command comes from the Virgin Mary.
- You don't have a vacation.
- Don't fly in the forest.
- Neither should you slip away from me.
- Or flee from me.
- Sits in absolute silence
- and do God's will.
See also
literature
- Franz Pfeiffer : Research and criticism in the field of German antiquity II. In: Session reports of the phil.-hist. Class of the Imperial Academy of Sciences , Vol. 52, 1866, pp. 3–86, here pp. 3–19 with a facsimile .
- Elias von Steinmeyer : The smaller Old High German language monuments. Berlin 1916. pp. 396-397.
- Walter Berschin : The Palatina in the Vaticana. A German library in Rome. Belser, Stuttgart / Zurich 1992. ISBN 3-7630-2087-X , p. 47.
- Wilhelm Braune : Old High German Reader . 17th edition, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1994. pp. 88-89.
- Ralph Dutli : The song about honey. A cultural history of the bee . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012. pp. 76-78.
- Meinolf Schumacher : Maja's ancestors? About bees in medieval literature . In: Bonsels' animal life. Insects and reptiles in children's and youth media , ed. by Petra Josting u. Sebastian Schmideler. Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2015. ISBN 978-3-8340-1518-1 , pp. 293–308, here pp. 293–297 ( digitized version ).
- The spiritual literature from the beginning to the beginning of the 14th century (German Literature Lexicon. Das Mittelalter Vol. 1). De Gruyter, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-598-24991-4 , pp. 162-165 Google Books
- Karlheinz plate: The Lorsch bee blessing. An old high German saying . Ed .: Heimat- und Kulturverein Lorsch. Verlag Laurissa, Lorsch 1993, ISBN 3-922781-19-5 (16 pages).
Web links
- http://www.galdorcraeft.de/zs_biene_d.htm
- Manuscript census, Lorsch bee blessing
- To the complete digital edition of the Lorsch bee blessing (Bibliotheca Laureshamensis - digital; direct link to fol.58r )