Gripla - 20.12.2013, Blaðsíða 27

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Abbo, later ninth century, Bella Parisiacae urbis II, line 472: Consilioque fugae
Burgun- adiere -diones ‘And the Burgun- were present -dians with advice
to flee’.131
samson, epitaph (date obscure): Super tumulum Atanagildi Abatas: Occulit
abbatis magni haec urna fabilas / Quem Athana- prisca vocitabant secula
-gildum ‘on the tomb of Abbot Atanagildus: this urn conceals the ashes
(favillas) of the great abbot whom Athana- ages of old called -gildus’
(‘Athanagildus’).132
tmesis in skaldic Poetry
Although the overall incidence of tmesis in Carolingian poetry is low,
remarkably ermoldus nigellus uses it twice in Book IV of his In honorem
Hlodowici. the first example occurs in line 13, as Louis is initiating his
conversion of the danes, the second in line 179, immediately following
ebbo’s good news that Herioldus has accepted Christianity and immedi-
ately before the ekphrastic description of Ingelheim. It seems equally re-
markable that examples of tmesis should crop up in verses ascribed to the
two earliest skalds to produce ekphrases, Bragi and Þjóðólfr ór Hvini. the
highest-incidence type of tmesis in Carolingian tradition, as shown by the
above list, is the splitting up of proper names, and this equally is an early
and productive type in the scandinavian tradition. the first attestation is
from Þjóðólfr’s Haustlǫng:
urðut brattra barða
byggvendr at þat hryggvir;
þá vas Ið- með jǫtnum
-unnr nýkomin sunnan.133
131 Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, vol. 4.1, ed. Paul von Winterfeld, Monumenta Germaniae
Historica: Poetae, vol. 4 (Berlin, 1899), 111; cf. Viking Attacks on Paris: The Bella parisiacae
urbis of Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, ed. and trans. nirmal dass, dallas Medieval texts
and translations, vol. 7 (Paris: Peeters, 2007), 90–1; Amory, ‘tmesis’, 47.
132 Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, 3:146, and cf. 3:143 on the dating; Amory, ‘tmesis’, 47.
133 Haustlǫng, 10.1–4, in Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning, ed. finnur jónsson, 4 vols.
(Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1912–15), 3 (B.1):16; e.A. kock, Notationes norrœnæ: anteckn-
ingar till edda och skaldediktning (Lund: Gleerup, 1923–44), §304; finnur jónsson,
‘kenningers led-omstilling og tmesis’, Arkiv for nordisk filologi 49 (1933): 10; Anne Holts-
sCHoLARs And skALds