As a general rule, the first poetical attempts of the Eastern, like those of the Western, Church, were in classical measures. But as classical Greek died out from being a spoken language, -- as new trains of thought were familiarized, -- as new words were coined, -- a versification became valueless, which was attached with no living bonds to the new energy, to the onward movement. Dean Trench has admirably expressed this truth in the introduction to his "Sacred Latin Poetry," and showed how the "new wine must be put into new bottles." Ecclesiastical terms must be used, which rebel against classical metre: in Greek, no less than in Latin, five words in eight would be shut out of the principal classical rhythms. Now, the Gospel was preached to the poor. Church hymns must be the life-expression of all hearts. The Church was forced to make a way for saying in poetry what her message bade her say. [2] S. Gregory Nazianzen, the first Greek Church poet, used only the ordinary classical measures. S. Sophronius of Jerusalem employed (and in their way not unhappily), Anacreontics: and his hymns on various festivals have some elegance. But there is a certain degree of dilittante-ism, rather than of earnestness, in these compositions; and the most airy, tripping, frivolous measure that the Greek Muse possessed, never, by any possibility, could form the ordinary utterance of the Church. The Church compositions of S. Sophronius, though called poiemata, are in fact mere prose: as those grand prayers on the Epiphany. How then was the problem to be solved as to the composition of Eastern Church Song? In Latin, somewhat before the time of S. Sophronius, A.D.630, it was answered by that glorious introduction of rhyme. Why not in Greek also? Now, it is no less true in Greek, than in Latin, that there was a tendancy to rhyme from the very beginning. Open Homer: look for caudate rhymes: -- Nemertes te kai Apseudes kai Kallianassa Enthad een Klumene, Ianeira kai Iphianassa. Il.18:46 Asteos aithomenoio theon de Fe menis aneken. Pasi de theke ponon, polloisi de kede epheken Os Achileus Troessi ponon kai kedea theken Il.21:523 Ou men gar meizon kleos aneros, ophra ken esin Eo ti possin te pexei kai chersi Feesin Odyss.8:147 Leonines are still more common. The reader's attention is particularly requested to those that follow: -- Il.2:220. Echthistos d Achilei malist en, ed Odusei 484. Espete nun moi, Mousai, Olumpia domat echousai 475. Reia doakrinosin, epei ke nomo migeosin. And I might mark multitudes more: but these are enough by way of example. The question then occurs at once, Why did not the new life, instilled into the Greek as well as into the Latin language by Christianity, seize the grand capability of RHYME in the one case as well as in the other? How stately it would have been in anapaestics! how sweet in trochaics! Why was it neglected? For this reason: the reader must remember that HARDLY ONE [3] OF THE RHYMES I HAVE BEEN POINTING OUT IN HOMER WOULD BE RHYMES TO A GREEK EAR. Read them accentually, and you find aristai and megistai are no more double rhymes to a Greek than gloriously and furiously are to us: mousai and echousai, no more than glory and victory. Accent, in the decline of the language, was trampling down quantity. Now accent is not favourable to such rhymes, though many poems have been thus composed in the newer Greek: euron philon komatake kath oper tetragonake. But it was not sufficiently removed from every-day life, -- too familiar, -- had too little dignity. There was an innate vulgarity about it which rendered it impossible to the Church. Now, let it be observed, accentuation even in Latin was not without its difficulty. In the new style, dissyllables, whatever their real quantity, were always read -- and so we read them today -- as trochees. Férox, vélox, scéptrum. Hence a verse in the early metrical hymns, such as -- "Castos fides somnos juvat," a dimeter iambic, would have been read in mediaeval times, Cástos fídes sómnos júvat, and so have virtually become a demeter trochaic. Popular poetry soon devised its own metre, political verse, as it was called, because used for every-day domestic matters. This was none other than a favourite metre of Aristophanes, -- iambic tetrameter catalectic, our own ballad rhythm: -- "A captain bold of Halifax, And this, sometimes with rhyme, sometimes without, is the favourite Romaic metre to the present day. For example: -- me dia thuras bainein de lego tous kleptabbadas, chostous, enkleistous, elkontas theria, stelobatas, pantas osoi para ta nomima drosi ton bion, kai ton monotropounton de, plen en eremou tropois. The Church never attempted this sing-song stanza, and preferred falling back on an older form. From the brief allusions we find to the subject in the New Testament, we should gather that "the hymns and spiritual songs" of the Apostles were written in metrical prose. Accustomed as many of the early Christians were to the Hebrew Scriptures, this is not unlikely; and proof seems strong that it was so. Compare these passages: -- Eph 5:14. Wherefore he saith: egeire o katheudon, Undoubtedly the fragment of a hymn. Again: -- Rev 4:8. megala kai Thamasta ta erga sou, And nearly coeval with these we have the Gloria in Excelsis, the Ter Sanctus, and the Joyful Light. Also the Eastern phase, so to speak, of the Te Deum; the kath ekasten emeran. And to this rhythmical prose the Church now turned. Footnotes: [2] As an illustration of this remark, it is worth while noticing how very few examples of Hexameters occur in the New Testament. I believe that the following are all that are tolerable; that is, that can so be scanned without one or two false qualities:-- S. Luke 21:18. Thrix ek tes kepsales umon ou me apoletai. S. John 8:5. ballei udor eis ton niptera, kai erxato niptein. S. John 8:16. ouk esti [n] doulos meizon tou kurion autou. S. John 17:20. kai peri ton pisteusonton dia tou logou auton. Titus 3:2. medena blasphemein, amachous einai, epieikeis. Heb. 12:13. kai trochias orthas poiesate tois posin umon. There are some which are very near a hexameter: as S. Matt. 23:6-- kai tas protokathedrias en tais sunagogais. A tolerable pentameter occurs in Rom. 6:13-- kai ta mele umon opla dikaiosunes. and a remarkable iambic in the Lord's Prayer. ton arton emon ton epiousion didou. [3] 1st:ed.: NONE |
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