I their | tic rhythm was more like thai of
our blank \ erse than of our rhymed metre. < if poetical feet they appear i,, have known nothing, and in conse- quence their verse must be less measured and I, -.- strict It- melody was rather that of thought than of art and skill spontaneous, like their religious feelings, and leep and impressive, hut Less subject to law.
POETRY
315
POETRY
and escaping from the hard limits of exact definition. Rhyme, properly so called, is disowned as well as metre. let Hebrew verse, as it had a kind of measured tread, so had it a jingle in its feet, for several lines are some- times found terminating with the same letter. In the main, however, its essential form was in the thought. Ideas are made to recur under such relations that the substance itself marks the form, and the two are so blended into one that their union is essential to consti- tute poetry. It is, indeed, incorrect to say that " the Hebrew poetry is characterized by the recurrence of similar ideas" (Latham's English Language, p. 372), if by this it is intended to intimate that such a peculiarity is the sole characteristic of Hebrew poetry. One, and that the chief, characteristic of that poetry is such re- currence ; but there are also characteristics in form as well as in thought. Of these it may be sufficient to mention the following:
1. There is a verbal rhythm, in which a harmony is found beyond what prose ordinarily presents; but as the true pronunciation of the Hebrew has long been lost, this quality can only be imperfectly appreciated.
2. There is a correspondence of words, i. e. the words in one verse, or member, answer to the words in an- other; for as the sense in the one echoes the sense in the other, so also form corresponds with form, and word with word. This correspondence in form will fully appear when we give instances (see below) of the paral- lelism in sentiment; meanwhile an idea of it may be formed from these specimens :
" Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? And why art thou disquieted in me?"
(Psa. xliii, 5). " The memory of the just is a blessing : But the name of the wicked shall rot"
(Prov. x, 7). " He tnrneth rivers into a desert, And water-springs iuto dry ground"
(Psa. cvii, 33).
In the original this similarity in construction is more exact and more apparent. At the same time it is a free and not a strict correspondence that prevails ; a corre- spondence to be caught and recognised by the ear in the general progress of the poem, or the general structure of a couplet or a triplet, but which is not of a nature to be exactly measured or set. forth by such aids as count- ing with the lingers will afford.
3. Inversion holds a distinguished place in the struct- ure of Hebrew poetry, as in that of every other; yet here again the remark already made holds good; it is only a modified inversion that prevails, by no means (in general) equalling that of the Greeks and Romans in boldness, decision, and prevalence. Every one will, however, recognise this inversion in the following in- stances, as distinguishing the passages from ordinary prose :
" Amid thought in visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon men, Fear and horror came upon me"
(Job iv, 13). " To me men gave ear and waited, To my words they made no reply"
(Job xxix, 21).
" For three transgressions of Damascus, And for four will I not turn away its punishment" (Amos i, 3).
" His crave was appointed with the wicked, Aud with the rich man was his sepulchre"
(Isa. liii, 9).
4. The chief characteristics, however, of Hebrew po- etry are found in the peculiar form in which it gives utterance to its ideas. This form has received the name of "parallelism." Ewald justly prefers the term "thought-rhythm," since the rhythm, the music, the peculiar flow and harmony of the verse and of the poem, lie in the distribution of the sentiment in such a manner that the full import does not come out in less than a distich. The leading principle is that a simple verse or distich consists, both in regard to form and
substance, of two corresponding members : this has been termed Hebrew rhythm, or paralh lismus mvmbrorum. Three kinds may be specified:
(1.) There is, first, the synonymous parallelism, which consists in this, that the two members express the same thought in different words, so that sometimes word an- swers to word; for example:
" What is man that thou art mindful of him, And the son of man that thou carest for him !"
(Psa. viii, 4). There is in some cases an inversion in the second line : " The heavens l elate the glory of God, Aud the work of his hands the firmament declares" (Psa. xix, 2). " He maketh his messengers the winds, His ministers the flaming lightning"
(Psa. civ, 4). Very often the second member repeats only a part of the first:
" Woe to them that join house to house, That field to field unite" (Isa. v, S).
Sometimes the verb which stands in the first member is omitted in the second: