Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Page 14

line, called a ‘stanza-word’ (vísuorð) by Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) in
Háttatal2 (Anthony Faulkes 2007:3–4), has six metrical positions; each
position is usually occupied by one syllable. The rhythm is variable, except
that the penult is always rhythmically strong, while the final syllable is in
an unstressed ending, usually an inflectional ending. The penult rhymes
with some syllable in the first three metrical positions. In even-numbered
lines (even lines), the rhyme is full-rhyme (aðalhending), in which both the
vowel and consonants rhyme; in odd-numbered lines (odd lines), the
rhyme is half-rhyme (skothending), only the consonants rhyme; the half-
rhyme does not include the vowel.3 The vowels are usually different, but
they can be identical.4 In odd lines, the penult usually alliterates and some
other syllable in the line as well; the first and third syllable alliterate if the
penult does not. In even lines the first syllable alliterates. This description
of rhyme and alliteration in dróttkvætt is traditional and as given by Snorri
Sturluson in Háttatal of Snorra-Edda (Faulkes 2007:4) in the early 13th
century. An example that Snorri gives is the following:
jǫrð kann frelsa fyrðum
friðrofs konungr ofsa

The first syllables in the words frelsa, fyrðum, and friðrofs alliterate. The
monosyllables jǫrð and fyrð- have a half-rhyme, while rofs and ofs- have a
full-rhyme.
The dróttkvætt meter has a regular stanza structure, but its features are
not well known or understood. Manuscripts, containing poems, assume
that each stanza has eight lines, but no contemporary manuscript exists
until after c. year 1200. An eight-line dróttkvætt stanza is always divisible
into two so-called half-stanzas. Each half-stanza is a syntactic unit con-
taining one or more full statements. It must begin with what I call a
clause-line,5 containing either a beginning of a main clause or of a subor-
dinated clause. If the clause is a main clause, a finite verb must be in one
Þorgeir Sigurðsson14
2 Háttatal is a poem by Snorri Sturluson listing variants of Old Norse meters. It is also a
name of a chapter in Snorra-Edda where the meters are explained. I frequently refer to Háttatal,
an edition of the poem and its commentary in Snorra-Edda by Anthony Faulkes (2007).
3 If a rhyming syllable ends in a vowel, the half-rhyme will have no consonant and be
the interesting ‘empty rhyme,’ see Kristján Árnason (1991:107).
4 This applies at least in the 10th and the 11th century; see Myrvoll (2014:130–131).
5 A more descriptive name for a clause-line could cause confusion by indicating that
it was not a technical term.