§ 17. Commodian's treatment of the Casura. There is yet one other peculiarity in these verses of Commodian's. He observes the strict rules of quantity in one set of cases, (namely in the penultimate syllable of each first hemistich), which cannot be explained as dependent upon the accents of the words at all. Meyer says (p. 296): "Die Bildung des Schlusses war Commodian die Hauptsache. Die letzte Silbe der beiden Halbzeilen, in welche er die Langzeile des Hexameters zerlegt,(1) ist von ihm als Zeilenschluss behandelt und frei gegeben". [Perhaps we should say, its quantity is indifferent because it is the final syllable of a word:-thus in 1.6 of the specimen given above, capita receives the same treatment as poterit in 1. 1]. "Dagegen ist ihm die Bildung der vorletzten Silbe die Hauptsache. Diese ist so gut wie immer quantitirend recht gebildet". Here Meyer is undoubtedly right. In many cases, to be sure, the penultimate syllable of the first hemistich must be correct in quantity, by the rules already discovered: thus if the cæsura is preceded by a polysyllable or dissyllable whose penult is short, then the second foot of the line must be a dactyl, and the quantity of the syllable in question is exactly what it should be. But there are other cases which can be explained only upon Meyer's principle. Thus, for example, in the first hundred lines of the Carmen Apologeticum, the first hemistich is six times ended with a monosyllable, e. g. Spero reus non est (81): Interdum quod meum est (83):— and in every case the syllable preceding, though final, is correct in quantity. Two explanations of this are possible, first that this attentiveness to quantity at the cæsura was merely a bit of pedantic affectation, or second that the quantity (1) Note again that the cæsura is always penthemimeral, even of final syllables was still barely distinguishable in Commodian's time, and that therefore while it could be disregarded elsewhere, it must be heeded in those parts of the line in which grace was most needed. The latter supposition seems more plausible. § 18. Concluding remarks. Further support for the opinion that Commodian's system was closely related to his mode of speech, may be found in the pseudo-hexametrical poems of the 8th century;(1) for although they were seemingly made in imitation of Commodian's verse, they do not exhibit the chief peculiarities of his system. at all. Thus in the Exhortatio Poenitendi we find such lines as Mens confusa taediis itinera devia carpens (3) Nec casus honoris sed ruinas animae plora (6) The authors of these verses could have thought of Commodian's poetry only as doggerel. Their scholarship would tell them that he used false quantities; their instinct could not tell them that he used correctly the prosody of his own century:-so in imitating him they would naturally overlook the very essence of his art. But the reason for Commodian's practice is, so far as our present inquiry is concerned, merely a question for the curious. The one fact of great present importance is that to Commodian the central point of interest and attention in his rhythm was the thesis of the metrical foot. He lived at a time when the native feeling for quantitative verse was all but gone;-but the verse still lived in its rhythm, by the force of its metrical ictus. Commodian has heretofore been regarded as the writer of an isolated type of verse, but it is now plain that he is directly in the line of our research. The particular path which he opened led nowhere, it is true, because it was based on an ephemeral condition of the language: (1) See Meyer pp. 276-284, and appendices. but it gives as perfect a specimen as could be desired of the transition state between metric and rhythmic. The other theory,-that these verses were of the syllabic order,-seemed indeed almost grotesque, for the essence of syllabism is equality, and here there is no equality-and the writer has never been able to understand why the elements that were obvious should be lost and those that were not should be preserved. An interesting corroboration of the foregoing argument is afforded by the passage in St. Augustine already referred to.(1) After the pupil has confessed himself baffled, the teacher says "At hoc mea pronuntiatione factum est, cum eo scilicet vitio quod barbarismum grammatici vocant: nam primus longa est et brevis syllaba; primis autem, ambae producendae sunt, sed ego ultimam earum corripui; ita nihil fraudis passae sunt aures tuae". Then the teacher repeats the verse in both forms, dwelling this time on the long is in primis, and the pupil cries without hesitation, "Nunc vero negare non possum, nescio qua deformitate me offensum!"-He did not object to false quantities in the least, but his ear was offended by any hitch in the run of the line.(2) (1) § 6, ante. (2) It will be observed that the exact scansion of some lines, if considered by themselves, is doubtful: e. g. does the 1st line of the Carm. Apol, begin with a dactyl or a spondee? But the number of doubtful lines is minimized by Commodian's practice of putting his cæsura after the thesis of the 3rd foot: thus if the 1st hemistich contains 7 syllables, it must contain 2 dactyls; if only 5 syllables, 2 spondees: its scansion is doubtful only if it contains just 6 syllables. So in the 2d hemistich there can be no doubt except where there are exactly 9 syllables. I have no doubt that this in the reason why Commodian divided his verses so uniformly. In doubtful cases we must choose that scansion which agrees with the system:-the system itself could be adequately established by examination of only those lines which are free from doubt. CHAPTER III. The Latin Hymns of Ambrose and his Followers. § 19. Introductory remarks. Commodian's verse was composed at a time when natural prosody still survived, through moribund. By the time of St. Augustine, however, as we have already seen, it was dead. While therefore the experiments of Commodian aimed to preserve the old rhythm in the last remnants of the old metrical garb, we should naturally expect later experimenters to discard the latter altogether, if they wished their verse to conform to the laws of ordinary pronunciation, and to find for the rhythm some other support than that of a forgotten prosody. This is exactly what was done, in the fifth and sixth centuries and after, by the writers of the Latin hymns. In the fourth century, Ambrose wrote the hymn beginning Jam surgit hora tertia Qua Christus adscendit crucem; Intendat affectum precis. Here we clearly have a quantitative metre, a scholarly reproduction of the classical iambic dimeter. Several centuries later, on the other hand, Adam of St. Victor was writing such verses as the following: Jesu, tuorum militum Transcendens omne meritum, Ad laudem tui militis Nos ejus juva meritis. Here we at once see that there is no dependence upon quantity. The analogy of the 3rd and 8th century hexameters raises a strong presumption, however, that the apparent rhythm of the lines was designed; and if so, the verse is manifestly of the accentual order. Our task will be to ascertain how far this presumption is supported by the facts, and (if it proves justifiable) by what steps the new accentual system came in. The hymns that have come down to us from the dark ages, exhibiting the change from quantitative to unquantitative structure in all its phases, afford more than enough material for solving the problem; but unfortunately something more is needed than abundance of material. Most of the specimens of verse in the interesting stages of transition are of very uncertain date. Thus the poem De Gaudiis Paradisi, of which the opening lines have already been quoted, has been variously ascribed to St. Augustine (354-430) and to Damiani (1002-1072), not to mention divers intermediate conjectures; and consequently, in an investigation to which accurate chronology is all-important, this hymn is practically useless. As might be expected, the authorship of the earliest hymns (i. e. those of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries) is the most thickly befogged; and these, as it happens, are just the ones that exhibit the most interesting forms. There are a few, however, of the early hymns, which we can arrange in chronological order with entire confidence, and from these, and a few others, we shall be able to get some light upon our inquiry. § 20. Ambrose. About 385 A.D. Bishop Ambrose introduced in the church of Milan the singing of psalms and hymns. Many of these hymns were written by Ambrose himself, and many more, of similar style and metre, have been erroneously ascribed to him. Four are incontestably genuine,(1) namely "Deus Creator omnium", (1) Being mentioned as his by St. Augustine. |