The Speaking of English Verse

all olbía te kaí ksýn olbíois aéi

génoit, ekéinu: g ûisa panteléis dámar.

áutɔis dé kái sú g, ô ksén; áksios gár êi

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agathá dómois te kái pósei tôi sôi, gýnai.

tá pôia tâuta? pará tínos d aphigménos?

ek têis korinthui. tó d épos huikserô: tákha,

hé:doio mén, pô:s d u:k án, askhállois d ísɔ:s.

tí d ésti, póia:n dýnamin hôid ékhei diplê:n;

týrannon autón hu:pikhó:rioi khthonós

têis isthmíais stέisu:sin, hɔ:s ɛudâit ekêi.

The character of the rhythm here indicated illustrates certain definite characteristics recorded by tradition in regard to Greek lyric and dramatic performances.

First that the musical accompaniment, chiefly that of flutes, was based as closely as possible on the actual musical "tune" of the spoken verse. This could be absolutely done in regard to quantity and stress, but it can be seen that the existence of determined pitch in words made it also possible in regard to pitch. Again, the nature of this very definite quantitative rhythm also explains the close association of dancing and poetry in choric art. The dances illustrated on the vases would be impossible to purely accentual rhythms with their lack of sustained phrasing. We can also understand the tradition of the laughter excited by the mistake of an actor who substituted γαλήν (weasel) for γαλήν (calm), the distinction between the two words being one of pitch. It would be possible for a Chinese actor to-day to make the same kind of mistake, since Chinese words depend for their meaning on the pitch at which their syllables are spoken. Finally we can understand that the audience could under these conditions give an absolutely musical attention to the metric structure of the verse, and hiss a "false quantity" as an Italian audience to-day would hiss a note sung out of time.

The need of rhyme in verse with so clear and melodic a structure would not be felt; the function of rhyme is so definitely melodic; phrasing the rhythm, and by its repetition developing the exact character of the pattern to the ear. But the varied grouping of quantity, marked to this extent, forms in itself a melodic unity which the drum-beat of accent does not achieve. One more point is of importance. The stanzaic forms of Greek verse, the ode and choric ode and dance songs, show a structure so elaborate and

repetitions so exact, that they could be followed only with difficulty even in a written record. It is plain that when spoken it was their interpretation in danced, or as we should say, in mimed movements, that really made their structure apparent.

The strophe with the turn again,

as Browning calls it, was, in the traditional way of marking off strophe and antistrophe, something obviously very different from the mechanical drill evolutions, or the casual draped poses indulged in by certain modern revivals of classic drama. The nature of these movements is discussed more fully in connection with the history of poetic form in a later chapter.

The quantitative character of Latin verse is generally held to have been deliberately determined. It may not improbably have depended on a marked differentiation between literary diction and popular speech-a distinction much more comprehensible in Latin than in Greek art, and harmonising with the whole history of poetic form in Roman literature.

It may be owing to this deliberately literary diction that we become more conscious of the conflict between meaning and metre in Latin than in Greek verse.

A short phonetic transcript illustrates the delicate poise and fall of syllables in Latin verse. There are no pitch marks, as these have been irrecoverably lost with the spoken inflections of the language.

at regina gra | wir jam durdun | saukia | kuirai

~|_ _|_ _| __| _ ~~ |

wɔlnus a lit wer | niis, et | kaiko | karpitur iŋni.

multa wi|ri: wir tuis ani moi, mul tuskwe re kursat

gentis honors; hai | rent in fiksi: | pɛktorɛ | wɔltuis

wɛrbakwɛ, | nɛk plaki dam mem | briis dat kura kwi|

eitɛm.

postɛra foebe: a: lus traibat lampade | terrais

kredo: Ekwilden, nɛk | wana filders, genus | esse de

orum.

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