Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1981, Side 108

106 Kristján Árnason
seems to suggest that accentuation played an important role in the
rhythm, but I cannot go into that here.
It is worth noting that lines C and F are here seen as having only
two ‘strong beats’ whereas the others have three. This is perhaps not in
full agreement with some traditional assumptions, but it follows from
the basic assumption outlined above that a ‘strong beat’ as here defined
could not be carried in dróttkvætt by light syllables. This assumption
accounts for the fact that no lines like:
(5) glaðan bera þaðan
occur in dróttkvætt poetry.
As mentioned before, an important feature of dróttkvætt rhythm is
that the lines invariably have a trochaic ending. This, together with the
fact that one of the two most common types above, the type A, can be
analysed into three pure trochees, might lead to a suggestion that the
basic pattem was trochaic. Even though the other types of line deviate
from this pattem, they all end with what can be seen as a trochee, and
it is a well known fact that the basic pattern of metres tends to assert
itself in the cadence.
So, I would like to suggest that the basic form of a dróttkvætt line
was a combination of three trochees, where the heavy beats had to be
carried by heavy stressed syllables (Type A) but that the variant struc-
tures listed above were allowed, as defined by a relatively restrictive set
of metrical rules, so that a certain amount of tension in rhythm was
allowed in other places than in the cadence.
3.
If we now retum to Stokes’ assertion to the effect that the dróttkvætt
metre was simply an imitation of the rinnard metre, we may ask in more
detail under what sort of conditions this may have taken place.
Bilingualism is a necessary condition. There must have (if this is what
happened) been people who were familiar with the ‘lending metre’ in
its original setting and who could appreciate it to a certain extent at
least and could imitate it in their vemacular poetry. This is how Latin
metres were borrowed or imitated by vemacular poets in the Middle
Ages and later, and indeed the Irish themselves have been seen as
providing examples of this. They even composed poetry in Latin in
metres that Murphy (1961) considers to have been the prototypes of