Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1981, Page 105

Did dróttkvætt Borrow its Rhythm from Irish?
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Irish had an initial stress-accent, we may assume that the fact that the
cadence was characterized by the type of word that formed it indicates
that lines had endings characterized by placement of a dynamic ictus,
some lines being catalectic, others trochaic or dactylic. Indeed one
might wonder whether the metres did not in fact have a stronger ac-
centual rhythm than usually is assumed. Murphy (1961:41) explicitly
says that for the understanding of Irish metrics the stress laws of Irish
must be ‘known to the reader’, although he does not tell us exactly how
accent worked in the metres. Watkins (1963) also argues that the
rhythm of the more archaic Irish metres was accentual, with the shape
of the cadence of each line (preceded by a line-intemal cæsura) as the
centre of the rhythm, and Carney (1971:53) sees the strict syllable
counting as an ‘upper-class aberration’, developed on the base of more
ancient accentual metres.
Turning to the dróttkvætt, it is commonly said that it had a syllable
counting rhythm. This view probably derives ultimately from Snorri
Sturluson’s comment to the effect that each dróttkvætt line contained
six syllables (cf. Snorra Edda:214). However, there is reason to believe
that the basic character of the rhythm was not simply a mechanic
counting of syllables, but that stress and quantity played a central role,
and that it is an incidental fact that the number of syllables in most
dróttkvætt lines was six.
Let us look at examples of the two most common types of dróttkvætt
line:
(1) A. herði Baldr at hildi
B. Veðrbliks liði miklu
I have here scanned the first line into what may be seen as three
trochees using — and “ respectively to denote what rather vaguely may
be called strong and weak beats. (I will return shortly to the question
of the nature of and relation between strong and weak beats and their
phonetic correlates.) The type B, however, is seen as consisting of two
strong followed by two weak beats and then a trochee. We may assume
that the dróttkvætt line as a metrical form has among its variant struc-
tures the types A and B.2
2 I am here using the terms ‘form’ and ‘structure’ in the sense used in discus-