Note to ESk Geisl 2^VII

[1-2] heims ... heimi ... heims: In dróttkvætt metre aðalhending is not appropriate in an odd-numbered l., hence Kock’s emendation of l. 1 (Skald) to þeirar húms í heimi. But exceptions were tolerated, and the rhyming pattern here is iðurmælt, one of the special effects explained in Ht (SnE 1999, 22). The repetition of heims/heimi/heims is also an echo of the prologue to the Gospel of John: erat lux vera quae inluminat omnem hominem venientem in mundum / in mundo erat et mundus per ipsum factus est et mundus eum non cognovit ‘That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world: and the world was made by him: and the world knew him not’ (John I.9-10). The Bb reading bjartr frá bjartri (l. 5) follows a similar pattern and echoes the lumen de lumine ‘light from light’ of the Credo; it is probably a better reading than Flat’s bert ‘clearly’. See NN §2051 for a discussion of the use of identical rhyme in this st. and elsewhere in skaldic poetry.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. SnE 1999 = Snorri Sturluson. 1999. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. Rpt. with addenda and corrigenda. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
5. Internal references
6. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Háttatal’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=165> (accessed 30 April 2024)