Heill Llama!
> I was curious about the Old Gutnish three liners as they seem to be
another expansion of the ancestral fornyrðislag metre shared in some
form by all the Germanic peoples. Maybe the dróttkvætt style arose
out of experiments like this, at first without structural rhyme or
strict syllable counting; I gather the earlier verses such as those
of Bragi himself were still quite free with the hendingar.
Yes, they are less strict in this respect. Clearly, once the new
tradition of dróttkvætt was established, poets took logical steps to
further develope it, including fast use of hendingar. Sadly, as the
tradition proved incompatible with the new religion, and it was
quickly abandoned - thus, dróttkvætt received only about a 200 year
lease of life. Naturally, poets born before the conversion, and who
wished to compose for fee and name (as others had done before), did
keep using the verse-form itself for awhile, but efforts ended up
falling on their face, as the rich poetic vocabulary was stripped,
forcing poets to try developing new poetic vocabulary from scratch,
while dramatically curtailing the heathen-oriented vocabulary that
was a cornerstone of the original dróttkvætt tradition. Translation
of a new mythological tradition happened quickly, and with it a new
use of the language, such that the scholar Snorri Sturluson was left
in desperate situation, trying to simultaneously preserve what was
left of the tradition in memory and encourage it in practice, while
at the same time having to adopt an elaborate Christian apologetical
explanation for his fathers' state of damnation as idol-worshippers,
which included, amongst other things, trying to save the original
god of the tradition, Óðinn, as an historical man, instead of just
allowing him to be turned into the devil, as the active evangelizers
had done since the conversion commenced. As it turned out, he lost
and the evangelizers won the day. Dróttkvætt died, and attempts to
resurrect it have been unsuccessful. In reading Hallfrøðar Saga
Vandræðaskalds, and reading between the lines, one can almost feel
the pain Hallfrøðr was forced to endure, having happily travelled
back to Norway from Iceland to compose for a king, only to be forced
to convert to Christianity by a king who wanted nothing to do with
his heathen poetic tradition. Instead of appreciating his art, the
king is only interested in his continued reconversion to heathenism,
trying to force him to Christ at any cost. Well, he never converted,
except in a false, social manner, undoubtedly turning introspective
about his tradition's death (and his faith's impending banishment).
One can see that this is where the tradition truely died, leaving
the likes of Hallfrøðr to take it to their graves in sorrow. Snorri
was noble to try what he did, being the best option possible (which
his modern critics should not forget), but the unavoidable reality
was that the tradition belonged to Óðinn-worshippers, and to them
alone - a fact that not Snorri, nor anyone, could change. Thus, the
glorious new tradition that the ON poets developed, and which should
rightly have received a long life, died a premature death, something
like if all the artistically important modern rock-stars were to die
young (as does happens), leaving their tradition to be subsequently
banned, not just by the government, but by legions of starry-eyed
youth, newly converted to a radical, anti-rock cultural ideaology. I
suppose there is no exact modern anaolgy, but that's about the best
I can come up with ;) Anyway, the reasons for the development of the
dróttkvætt traditions were many. For one thing, artists will always
seek a vital, living tradition, and poets are artists. Reciting old
inherited verse, like Eddic material, was neither original, nor
artistic, to the same degree as composing fine, new work under such
a complex form as dróttkvætt. Bragi Boddason would not likely have
gotten paid, or received the name he did, if he had simply gone to a
king and recited Völuspá. As anyone who was anybody would have known
such traditional material, religious or heroic, such a situation
would resemble that of a modern poet reciting sections of the Gospel
of Matthew for a head of state. While the poet may believe in, and
respet, the Gospel of Matthew, he would, as an artist, I think, be
more likely to use themes from Matthew in verse about the head of
state than to simply read the Gospel aloud. Furthermore, changes in
the language meant that a development like dróttkvætt was inevitable
in some form, as this is what the language itself could do at that
stage. How did change in the language effect old material under the
old inherited meters? Well, for one thing, it meant that the likes
of a two-syllable line was now acceptable, as it occured in the old
inherited material as a natural consequence of language change. It
would have been understood as natural and, in fact, was natural at
that stage, even occuring in ON oral scripture to prove it:
deyr fé
deyia fré,ndr
deyr sialfr hit sama
Hallowed by tradition by Bragi's time, and natural in his language
as it is, it could hardly have been development in his time. No one
was developing this kind of verse at the time, as it would have run
counter to the language's development - something which dróttkvætt
shows, as that is what actually was being developed at the time. The
old meters could be used, but were no longer cutting-edge/important
artistically. The old meters, like ljóðaháttr and fornyrðislag, had
their glory days in the past. Aside from occasional verses, and an
exception here or there, the old meters were by ON times usually
just the vehicles of the old, then classic, material, enshrined by
the religion it came out of, as with Vedic verse, etc.. Actaully,
the situation for the standard 4-line rhymed and alliterated verse
in Modern Icelandic is similar. In its glory days, it was the most
typical meter in the powerful rímur-tradition, being handled with
great skill in epic-style versifications of ancient tales, but now
usually occuring an a single stanza on a contempory theme, such as a
memorial verse in the paper, a sharp political satire, an honourary
verse, love verse, etc.. New styles are the fashion, even if the old
one lies closer to the heart, perhaps for the majority. Old meters,
like the ljóðaháttr shown above, were developed when they still had
the force of innovation, aside from being natural to their language
stage:
daujiþ fehu
daujan frijôndiz
daujiþ selbaz *þat samô (PN would not have **hit samô, as *hinaz
is 'this' in PN, eventually becoming the ON article by the time it
was replaced by siá/þessi; Go.: diwiþ faíhu diwand frijônds diwiþ
silba + þata samô/samaleikô/etc. - whatever is the most natural way
of saying 'the same')
Eventually, and after the form had become traditional, the classic
material would be remembered, such as things of religious/scriptural
import or the best heroic verses, things which were central to the
average man of culture at the time. PN and Go. were, as is known,
very similar languages. Not surprisely, PN is more similar to Gothic
than to its own daughter language, as Go. is actually contemporary,
whereas ON from its best attested stage is 1000 years younger. One
can, thus, reasonably conclude that verse forms most typical of PN,
were also typical of Gothic, an export language that was, no doubt,
once the mother-tongue of the Gutlanders (and their relatives just
across the water at the Vistula in ON Hreiþgotaland). If the Goths
could not speak with more the westerly PN speakers without studying
the language, then no one could. Of course, we know they could, but
not without being identified as Goths by their dialect, etc.. This
has, I think, serious implications for reconstruction of the Gothic
poetic tradition, which many of the best scholars of Germanic would
probably give their right arm for. Tolkien composed a poem in Gothic
(perhaps more than one), and others have one likewise, but the big
problems are 1)lack of poetic exemplers and 2)unattested vocabulary
(which is known to be vast). Naturally, we cannot simply reconstruct
a tradition we know nothing about, making wild guesses about what we
think Go. verse looked like, in form and content. This is where PN
is the only key available, historically (the Goths' origin and their
original culture/religion), linguistically (PN is the only language
similar and known about, and religiously (the Go. ethnic religion
would have been as similar to the PN one as the language was, and
can still be shown to be). Thus, instead of trying to invent a Go.
tradition, I favour a different approach. Knowing as we do about the
unprovable fact that the Goths were worshippers of *Wôdans, *Þunrs,
*Teiws, etc., as were all of their Germanic kindred, and that many
were, no doubt, devout, or at least proud, of their ancestral faith,
as everyone else is, I imagine the following scenario as a logical,
modern approach to reconstructing Go. poetic tradition: a Goth from
Gutland, Hreiðgotaland, modern Romania, Krimea, or even Italy (that
is, any Goth) the time of Wulfila (the only attested language stage)
travels to, for instance, an ancient kingdom in, say, Norway, such
as Þelamörk, Rogaland, etc. due to marriage/work/trade (any real,
historical situation that must sometimes have happened) and becomes
immersed in the local culture (as would happen), learning the local
PN quickly (as he would), and hearing verses in PN at local religous
observances (as is known to have occured), in which he participates
as a devout Goth. This imaginary scenario, while driven by the fact
of modern interest in what Go. tradition might have looked like, is
the best option for Go. translation/vocabulary restoration, I think.
Here are some reasons why: 1)it pairs the most similar languages &
allows translation of the most natural, idiomatic type (as opposed
to translation from Greek, etc., which puts scholars into doubt and
ambiguity about natural Go. etc.) 2)it allows translation of work
known to have existed in Gothic (such as the teachings of the Gothic
chief-god, *Wôdans) into Gothic from a language in which it is also
known to have existed (Proro-Norse, from which the material survived
to ON, its daughter, due to: 1)no change in religon 2)the accidental
commitment to writing, and susequent chance survival of ON material
from the work in question, inherited from PN, after the conversion
to Christianity, but before the respect for and knowledge of the old
religion mostly died. Thus, the only thing highly hypothetical here
is that a Goth would actually make a translation of the material in
Gothic, as he would already have had an inherited version, perhaps
similar, perhaps different, of the same material. But the fiction is
simple and possible. Perhaps he wanted to take this version back to
his commrades in the old country, as it would really have interested
them to known how the PN folk had it, being relevant anyway and very
interesting to him, as it was what he believed in anyway, together
with his Gothic social milleu. There is no doubt that he would have
regarded it highly, and as scripture from his god, even if it would
likely not have assumed the same position in Gothic society as the
redeaction of the material actually inherited through historical,
ancestral Gothic channels. It could have happened, and it may have
happened, one or maore times, in real history - we will never know
But for our purposes, the fiction works practically, enabling us to
produce Go. material of a type known to have existed, and known to
be culturally Go., and which, no doubt, would have interested many
Goths greatly, even if its source is not directly Gothic. Anyway,
this is my main line of thinking/approach to the popular scholarly
debate about what to do with Go., giving us, in my opinion, the best
way to get at 1)lost Go. vocabulary and 2)lost Go. material/culture.
I'll respond to the rest of your response after dinner, as this has
become a long post ;)
-K
This Gutnish
> grouping of three lines has some similarity with ljóðaháttr, except
> that there are three beats in each line instead of 2:2:3 + 2:2:3.
It
> also has some similarities with the Old English hypermetrical
lines.
> These are attested as early as c. 700 in the quote from the Dream
of
> the Rood on the Ruthwell Cross inscription. They expand the normal
> pairs of 2-beat halflines to 3-beat pairs with double alliteration
on
> the first two beats of the first halfline, but the headstave is the
> *middle* beat of the second halfline:
>
> ...swætan on þa swiðran healfe.
> Eall ic wæs mid sorgum gedrefed,
> forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe.
> Geseah ic þæt fuse beacen
> wendan wædum ond bleom;
> hwilum hit wæs mid wætan bestemed,
> beswyled mid swates gange,
> hwilum mid since gegyrwed.
>
> ...to bleed on its right side.
> I was utterly afflicted with sorrows,
> I was afraid of that fair sight.
> I saw that eager beacon
> change clothes and colours:
> sometimes it was wet with moisture,
> drenched with a flow of blood,
> sometimes adorned with jewels.
>
> These hypermetrical lines come in small groups like this embedded
in
> poems which otherwise follow the more usual pattern of 2:2 with the
> headstave on the first beat of the second halfline. So the
> hypermetrical are a special effect, like going into slow motion.
The
> lines are usually expanded by adding an extra foot, often / x
> (healfe), but also sometimes x / (ond bleom), or they can be like D
> lines with an extra dip between the first two lifts (a to ðam
> ælmihtigan). Optionally, the first and third beats of the second
> halfline can alliterate with each other (oferdrencte his duguðe
ealle,
> . swylce hie wæron deaðe geslegene), but as far as I know
the
> third beat of the first line must have a different initial sound to
> all the other beats.
>
> > > ON meters like ljóðaháttr and fornyrðislag were inherited from
Proto-
> > Germanic.
>
>
> As far as I'm aware, the former doesn't have an Old English
> equivalent. The closest to it is Wulf and Eadwæcer [
> http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/wulf/ ], a powerful and
> mysterious poem which is also unusual in having a refrain. I've
seen
> it described as ljóðaháttr, but it's not really clear whether the
> standalone halflines with only line-internal alliteration are to be
> recited with three beats, or two, since each of them could be read
as
> perfectly regular lines according the the normal rules of OE verse:
>
> ungelic(e) is us - E
>
> bireþ wulf to wuda - B
>
> uncer giedd geador - C
>
> My guess is that they would all be treated as ordinary halflines.
> They all have two alliterating staves. The last two have a similar
> rhythm if not exactly the same, adding to the sense that this might
> have been sung. The overall effect is to interupt the flow,
> fragmented and inconclusive, the opposite of the grand rolling
> passages of the hypermetrical verse, but perfectly in keeping with
the
> subject. Curiously, there are other halflines that have less than
the
> usual number of unstressed syllables -- Wulf min Wulf -- more like
the
> reduced lines that appear sometimes in ON fornyrðislag. Old
English
> verse is more tolerant of unstressed syllables generally that Old
> Norse, partly because of changes that happened between Proto-Norse
and
> Old Norse which led to a reduction of unstressed syllables, but
maybe
> also a stylistic tendency. But then continental Germanic
alliterative
> verse is much looser still in this regard.
>
> Now just a few thoughts abojut your Gothic version of the verse
from
> Hávamál / Hó,vamó,l.
>
> > juggs was ik faúrþis
>
> This raises an interesting question of where to put the pronoun if
the
> verb is in "second position" after some non-subject constituent.
Old
> English tends to place the pronoun before the verb, 'geong ic wæs',
> 'forht ic wæs', except in questions, negatives and with þá "then"
and
> þonne "then", (but if the subject was a noun, then that noun tends
to
> follow the verb), whereas Norse and the continental Germanic
languages
> tend to treat nouns and pronouns alike when the verb is in second
> position, even in their earliest attested forms, and be a bit
stricter
> about the second position of the verb than Old English (in those
types
> of clause that demand it), at least in prose. But I guess there's
> more freedom in poetry, and this is only a tendancy in OE. The
other
> order is found too e.g. 'Seccan sohte ic ond Beccan'.
>
> I've read some theoretical arguments from Þórhallur Eyþórsson in
> favour of Gothic being like Old English on this score, but I've
also
> noticed one example where the pronoun seems to follow a verb in 2nd
> position: þanuh biþê ût usiddjêdun eis (translating a Greek
absolute:
> AUTWN DE EXERCOMENWN). So you could be right about the word order
> here. But as ever, it would be nice to have more (reliably
> independent) examples. Another example that might be relevant: iba
> þank þû faírháitáis "you do not offer thanks, do you...?" (Gk. MH
ECEI
> CARIN)--but since the rest of the clause matches the Greek word
order,
> it's not clear how the whole thing would look in natural Gothic.
So
> maybe either would be possible: 'juggs was ik faúrþis' and 'juggs
ik
> was faúrþis'.
>
>
> > fôr ik áins samana
>
> I don't think the ON idiom 'einn saman' "alone" is attested in
Gothic.
> If you wanted to avoid it for that reason, there are a few other
> verbs of travelling that could fill the gap, e.g. áins hvarboda;
áins
> wratoda.
>
>
> > áudags þûhta mis (+ik/ik wisan)
>
> I think Gothic may have expressed this as simply 'áudags þûhta
ik', or
> 'áudags ik þûhta', either with 'wisan' (Gal 2:6, Gal 6:3, Sk 4:7),
or
> without (2Cor 13:7). I'm fairly sure the dative pronoun would be
left
> out even though that's potentially ambiguous with the meaning "to
> seem". Compare: 'jabai hvas anþar þugkeiþ trauan in leika, ik
mais'
> "if any other man thinks that he (himself is able to) trust in the
> body, I (do) more." And: 'sahvazuh izei usqimiþ izwis, þuggkeiþ
> hunsla saljan guda' "whoever kills you will think that he is
offering
> a sacrifice to God."
>
> For the sake of the metre, maybe either: 'áudags ik þûhta' or
change
> it to a B line with the pronoun and finite verb unstressed at the
> beginning: 'ik þûhta áudags wisan'?
>
>
> > manna ist mans gaman
>
> A bit of a pun here: a Gothic word 'gaman' (= ga + man, neuter)
does
> occur, but with the meaning "partner" or "comrade" [
> http://www.wulfila.be/lib/streitberg/1910/HTML/B046.html ]. If you
> wanted to stick to attested words, you could maybe have 'fahêþs' or
> 'hlasei' here.
>
>
> Anyway, thanks for you detailed response to my questions. I hope I
> haven't wandered too far off topic with this post, but I think it's
> interesting to compare the different Germanic traditions, and might
> offer insights about the origins of the various different metres
that
> are attested in Old Norse which were developed from the inherited
> fornyrðislag style.
>
> Llama Nom
>