ʾAkko-nu bǝʾsi ('Was he not a man?'): stanza cycle for the thirty-three miracles of Mary

አኮኑ፡ ብእሲ፡ · Anonymous · unknown · liturgy · LIT4274AkkonuB (formerly LIT3047RepCh327); https://w3id.org/malke/4274/ ; companion collection LIT5673AkkonuColl

Ethiopic · domain: miracles-mary · researched 2026-11-13

no English translation located. No published English translation of this text was located in the catalogues and series checked. Where only a non-English rendering or a translation of a daughter version exists, it is recorded below and does not close the gap. Treat this as a gap candidate, not as proof that no translation exists; the evidence names every source checked.

Why this is in the register

The Beta Masaheft record (TEI, checked 2026-11-13) has an edition reference (pp. 336–352) and a secondary bibliography but no translation entry. The Malkǝʾa Gubāʾe database prints the Geʿez stanzas with manuscript folios and a bibliography (Budge 1900; Grohmann 1919; Habtemichael Kidane in EAe) but no translation (https://malkeagubae.com/works/4274/, CC BY-SA 4.0); Budge's 1900 Ethiopic-text volume contains no rendering of these stanzas (searched the full text at https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008690600). HOLLIS 'Akkonu besi' = 0 records (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Akkonu%20besi&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 LOC 'akkonu besi' = 0. PEMM's bibliography of editions and translations of Marian texts lists no rendering of the ʾakko-nu bǝʾsi stanzas (https://pemm.princeton.edu/en-us/research/bibliography).

Thirty-three hymn stanzas, each summarising one miracle of the fixed ʾAkko-nu bǝʾsi cycle (LIT5673AkkonuColl); the stanzas are frequently copied after the miracle they summarise, often with a miniature. The related ʾO-ʾƎgzǝʾǝtǝya Māryām cycle (LIT7498) reworks 27 of the 33.

Existing translations recorded

None recorded in English. Non-English versions, where they exist, are named in the evidence above.

Electronic text

Source and licence
Beta Masaheft · TEI XML · CC BY-SA 4.0 LIT4274AkkonuB
other · HTML · CC BY-SA 4.0 4274

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: open scan — 3 candidate(s). Grohmann 1919 is the only scholarly edition of the hymn (BetMas edition pp. 336–352, i.e. inside the section that starts at p. 322). Its IA text layer is worthless for Geʿez and tesseract -l amh on the page image produces noise, so the scan is usable only through re-OCR of the images or manual transcription; the malkeagubae.com text (CC BY-SA 4.0) remains the better machine-readable base. BnF Éthiopien 61 is the named witness but is not digitised.

Scan / witness	Format	Pages	Rights	OCR	Evidence
Aethiopische Marienhymnen, ed. Adolf Grohmann (Leipzig: Teubner, 1919) — 'Der H… internet-archive · in.ernet.dli.2015.340651	pdf	—	public-domain	none	https://archive.org/metadata/in.ernet.dli.2015.340651 (HTTP 200): title 'Aethiopische Marienhymnen', creator 'Grohmann, Adolf', 1919, ger. The table of contents in the text layer reads "Der Hymnus 'Akkonū be'esi 322 — 3…
The miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary … the Ethiopic texts, ed. E. A. W. Budg… internet-archive · gri_33125008690600	pdf	900	public-domain	poor	https://archive.org/metadata/gri_33125008690600 (HTTP 200): 'the Ethiopic texts', languages ['eng','gez'], date 1900, imagecount 900. Downloaded the _djvu.txt (https://archive.org/download/gri_33125008690600/gri_3312500…
Taʾammǝra Māryām codex (62 catalogued items) betamasaheft · BnF Éthiopien 61	iiif	—	unknown	none	Beta maṣāḥǝft names BnF Éthiopien 61 as the witness of LIT4274AkkonuB (works page, HTTP 200); the manuscript page https://betamasaheft.eu/manuscripts/BNFet61 (HTTP 200) lists LIT4274AkkonuB and 62 items, but carries no…

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: ʾAkko-nu bǝʾsi — 0 record(s). No catalogue record was retrieved.

Sources checked

Cite: Tergwame, “ʾAkko-nu bǝʾsi ('Was he not a man?'): stanza cycle for the thirty-three miracles of Mary” (ethiopic gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/ethiopic-anonymous-akkonu-besi-hymn