Gripla - 20.12.2010, Qupperneq 41

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mark written on the margin of his own transcription.75 Neither bone nor
bene would be metrically admissible, and bone will be used in line 5, while
bene would be the only adverb in this long list of adjectives in the vocative
case. Last but not least bene would limit the force of pudice (chaste)! Thus,
a scribal error (e.g. bone for beate) does not seem likely, though it cannot be
ruled out. The beate of the 1776 edition could possibly be a misreading or
an unmarked correction. The mistaken emendations in line 21 are not indi-
cated in the first printed text. If we have here a scribal error, which is pos-
sible but not likely, it could have occurred when the carmen was transferred
from wax tablet to parchment. Although the hole in lines 18-20 seems to
work irreparable harm to the text of these lines, the extent of the damage
is not beyond the limits of what can be repaired through patient study.
First of all, no whole word is missing, and, secondly, the rhyme and meter
provide useful guidelines for reconstruction. The initial p before the lacuna
in line 18, and the final a on the other side (with a nasal stroke above it to
signify -am) are still clearly visible on the black and white photographs
taken in Copenhagen in 1965, before the repair of the hole. The lengthen-
ing of the final -e in mente is a standard productio in arsi, found also in sev-
eral other lines of the poem, while the sense and remaining letters require
a verb in the first person singular, present, subjunctive, ending in -am.
Only disyllabic verbs of the 2.-4. conjugation fit the description, and of the
possible candidates, plaudo gives a better meaning than psallo, considering
the qualification of the action performed as laus in line 19. Indeed, the
ascending curve of the d is still visible. According to Thesaurus Linguae
Latinae (s.v. plaudere), plaudo as a transitive verb in the sense of laudo is a
poetic construction from late antiquity and thus nothing out of the ordi-
nary in medieval Latin poetry. In line 20, tibi is predetermined since the
word must rhyme with scribi at the end of the line. In fiet, the f must be
supplied while a fragment of the i is still visible on the edge of the hole,
and the ending -et clearly visible on the black and white photograph. The
conjecture is printed in the 1776 edition.76 Finally the conjecture of line 20,
which is also printed by Langebek and Suhm,77 although with a classical t
for the medieval c, suggests itself fairly easily when the lexical options
75 Jón Helgason, “Archive Box 12”.
76 Langebek and Suhm, Scriptores rerum Danicarum medii aevi, 631.
77 Ibid., 631.
THE FORGOTTEN POEM