iii. Damaged, illegible or uncertain text

‡ r.    Text is unreadable or highly uncertain, either because of physical damage (e.g. hole in ms., ink blurred) or because the letter forms cannot be identified.

i.       In the Text and in the Prose order: Use … to indicate unreadable words and phrases, or supply letters in italics (giving them equal status to an emendation).

ii.      In the Readings: Unreadable text should always be indicated, whether or not there are other variants on the same lemma. Use '[…]', i.e. use the same convention as in the transcriptions. Hence the Readings:

         [2] menskerðir: 'me[…]ðir' B

         [7] sterkr: '[…]cr' 39

‡ s.    Text is physically damaged or difficult to read, but can be read with moderate certainty; e.g. letters are partly obscured by a hole or rubbing, or the ink is clear but the letter-forms are not unambiguous. The format is:

i.       In Text and Prose order: Use italics for illegible or uncertain letters.

ii.      In Readings: Such cases should be indicated if there are other variants on the same lemma or if there are only a few mss. They need not be indicated where their evidence is not important. The format is brackets round the uncertain letters and a following question mark.

         [2] draugar: draugr H, Hr, 'd(ug)ar'(?) F

‡ t.    Text is uncertain but there are two clear alternatives. The word or can be used here, as in § l-iv-g above, or e.g.:

         [4] auðnu: auðna J2«, 'auðun' or 'auðnu' F

# u.   Text cannot be made sense of or is impossibly corrupt. Place an † symbol at the beginning and end of corrupt text. Variant readings should still be entered in the usual way.

‡ w.   Early copies of partly damaged mss. Where a scribe copying a damaged ms. could evidently read more than is legible today, such variants should always be included. The format is (where 744« is a C18th copy of B):

         [3] gránn: gráns R, T«, A, C '[…]s' B, 'gra . s' 744«

         [3] reifr: so T«, U, A, C, 744«, reif R, 're[…]' B

Where the scribe copying the damaged exemplar indicates illegibility in some way, this should be indicated:

[2] haf golli: '[…]' B, 'h‚a‚f gol‚l‚i' 744«

The situation is explained in the Introduction to the poem with wording such as:

'Where B is no longer legible, it is supplemented here by 744«, a copy made when B was in a better condition.'

References