Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Page 25

kvætt. Lines 3 and 4 have the characteristics of a meter Snorri defines and
calls Torf-Einarr’s meter (no rhyme in odd lines and half-rhyme in met-
rical positions 3 and 5 of even lines).
I use the following half-stanza from Torf-Einarr’s lausavísur number
4 to demonstrate items number 1, 2, and 4.
Eru til míns fjǫrs margir
menn of sannar deilðir
ór ýmissum ttum
ósmábornir gjarnir;

Lines 1 and 3 are without rhyme and line 1 is a clause-line. The lack of
rhyme in line 3 is a proto-dróttkvætt feature (item 1). Lines 2 and 4 have
half-rhymes instead of full-rhymes, which is another proto-dróttkvætt
feature (item 2) and line 2 has the rhyming syllables in metrical positions
1 and 3 (menn : sann-), which is one more proto-dróttkvætt feature (item
4).
Rhyme that links metrical lines (crossing rhyme, see next section) is
a feature of both proto-dróttkvætt and early dróttkvætt. Snorri attributes
it to Bragi by stanza 58 in Háttatal (he says the stanza is in Bragi’s meter).
The first half of stanza 58 is as follows (Finnur Jónsson 1912–1915
BII:77):
Es til hjalma hyrjar
herjum styrjar væni,
Þar svát jarl til ógnar
egnir tognu sverði;

Snorri explains that lines 1 and 3 are without rhyme, but their penult
rhymes with a syllable in the following even line32 (hyr- : her- and ógn- :
egn-). The half-rhyme in lines 2 and 4 is in positions 1 and 3, which is a
proto-dróttkvætt feature (item 4). Lines 1 and 3 are clause-lines and they
do therefore not need to have rhyme in early dróttkvætt.
Snorri saw all the features in items 1–4 as antiquated. He did not
allow odd lines to be without rhyme, even if they were clause-lines (he
did not use that term), and additionally it seems that Snorri thought that
in previous times, but no longer, rhyme between lines could compensate
for a lack of rhyme. I discuss this further in the following section.
Haustlǫng 25
32 In Snorri’s words: “Hér er í fyrsta ok þriðja vísuorði it síðarsta málsorð haft til
hendingar, en missir þess orðs ins fyrra er gera skyldi skothending, en við þetta hendingar -
orð eru í ǫðru ok inu fjórða vísuorði hendingar” (Faulkes 2007:26).