Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1981, Qupperneq 109

Did dróttkvætt Borrow its Rhythm from Irish? 107
some Irish metres. It is quite possible that bilingual Celto-Nordic poets
existed.
Turning to the more interesting, truly linguistic questions, the pro-
blems immediately become quite subtle. A general question that comes
to mind is this: Can any metre be borrowed by any language from any
language? That is, are there not some conditions that must be met for
a metre to be ‘borrowable’ into a foreign language? For example, can a
quantitative metre be borrowed by a language without quantity?
A well-studied case of metrical borrowing is to be found in the
adoption of the Greek hexameter by Latin poets. Since the accentual
systems of Latin and Greek are considered to have been different (cf.
Allen 1973 passim), it is often assumed that attempts were made to
settle potential tension, either in composition by letting the Latin stress
accent coincide with metrical strong position, or in some cases by
making changes in the rules of metrical structures. Basically, it seems
to be Allen’s conclusion that in the Latin hexameter a certain amount
of tension always prevailed between the Greek quantitative pattem and
the accentual rhythm of spoken Latin. Yet, complete dissonance was
avoided as there was a very strong tendency among Latin poets to make
the Latin word accents coincide with metrical ictuses near the end of
the line. But it seems to be Allen’s basic conclusion that the hexameter
never really fitted into the Latin prosodic pattem and that its practice
was a learned art (Allen 1973:346). But, according to Allen, another
Greek metre, the Sapphic stanza, became popular when, partly through
an innovation by Horace, it was remodelled to fit better into the ac-
centual pattem of Latin (op. cit. 347-9).
Another example of metrical borrowing is, according to some
scholars, provided by Irish itself. Murphy (1961:12, 18-23) considers
Irish syllabic poetry, with its principle of counting the actual number
of syllables for each line, to have developed on the model of Latin
hymnal metres that were used in Ireland as well as in other parts of
Europe.
Old Irish is considered to have had a strong stress accent on the first
syllable (cf. e. g. Thurneysen 1946:27-31). There were some compli-
cations in the placement of the accent in compound words, particularly
in verb-forms, but the basic characteristic is an initial stress accent. If
this was the case, it was highly unlikely that this would be completely
without effect on the metrical rhythm. Indeed, the Irish syllabic metres