Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 235

Words, Words, Words
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preclude even the slightest change. Here too, however, we find a fair degree of
variation. There are, for example, a number of cases where the two texts have a
different rhyme word, although in every case, interestingly, the rhyme itself is
preserved,27 e.g.:
1.10, 1 jafn vifiþann (22), jafn við hann (W)>
1.13, 1 annar næstur (22), annar kœrstur (W)\
111.7, 2 kappinn knár(22), kompán vár(W)'>
111.25, 3 hygginfrú (22), hringa brú (W).
There are, similarly, many cases where there is a different alliterative word,
while, again, the alliteration is always preserved:
I. 16, 3 þessir fara meðfránan geir (22), þessirfara mefifinan geir (W);
II. 14, 3 hér mátt hann mefi heifiri sjá (22), hinn sem þú mátt héðan til sjá (W) - here
both the alliterative words in the line are different;
III. 22, 3 keskibrögðin kennasthér(22), keskibrögðin komaþau hér(W).
Here again there is no compelling reason to prefer one reading to another. This
is obviously not always the case, and there are sometimes readings which are
clearly better. In III.35, 3, for example, Whas Iventþénti jungfrú sjá, while 22
reads Iventþénti auðgrundsmá. Either of these could work from the metrical and
alliterative point of view, but the following line is óskafógur og vœn aðsjá, and any
decent poet would avoid rhyming a word with itself.
A better reading is not necessarily a more original one, however, and here it
should be remembered that the vast majority of Icelandic manuscripts were not
produced in scriptoria by professional copyists, but rather on farms and at fishing
stations by ordinary people, many of them poets and kv&ðamenn themselves. It
is therefore possible - even likely - that in the course of a poems transmission
various imperfections will have been ironed out. The very first line of Skikkju-
rímur 'm both 22 and W, for example, is Kátlegeru þau kvœðin flest, but in 22 flest
has been crossed out and næstadded in the margin. Næst is a more perfect rhyme
with kœrstthan is flest (which works, but only just), and this reading was adopted
by Finnur Jónsson in his edition, but it seems obvious to me at least that^eríis
the original reading, and that næst is an improvement made by the copyist.28
27 Cf. Rosamund Allen, KingHorn (New York, 1984), p. 35: ‘Rhyme [. . .] served two important
functions: first, it was a structural device; secondly, it served as an aid to memory. Indeed, the
rhyme words are frequently the pivot around which the couplet was composed, and from which
it was memorised, or re-fashioned if the memory lapsed.’ Quinn and Hall,Jongleur, p. 86, note
‘thejongleurs substitution of one (i.e., systematic) rhyme word for another, but his preservation
of the same couplet-defining rhyme element.’
28 Finnur at least mentions this correction in his apparatus; he fails, however, to note two other
cases where the text of 22 was originally in agreement with W/but has been altered (1.17.3 and
1.56.4), and while he does say that Jarmóð(11.6.3) was first written Armóð, he does not mention
that Armóð is the reading found in S.