Note 33 — Chapter IV · POETIC, OLD AND NEW (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURIES)

A widespread explanation is that Irish hymns were often composed with no other rhythm than equality between lines in the number of syllables. Even the support of W. Meyer (see especially Spanisches zur Geschichte der ältesten mittellateinischen Rythmik) and of Blume seems insufficient to establish this theory against two grave objections. The first objection is that mere equality in number of syllables hardly constitutes a pattern. It does not provide recurrences marked enough to guide either composer or hearer. It is hardly verse. The idea that a practise so mechanical actually became a habit is repugnant. The second objection is that on this theory Irish Latin verse ignored not only quantities, but word-accent—ignored, that is, either speech-tune. The Irish monks of all men, the best linguists of Europe in this period, were hardly the ones to write Latin verse by ignoring the habit of the language. And in fact the following of the word-accent will often reveal a stress rhythm sufficient for the ruder mnemonic verses and satisfying in the better ones. Moreover this consideration is fortified by what we know of the music (see note 27 above), which leaned on the word-accent. True, such rendering sometimes involves two unstressed syllables in succession, or conversely two stresses without intervention; but this variation is a natural means against monotony. The pattern is kept by the unvarying number of stresses in each line; variety is secured by occasionally shifting their places. The idea that in this period iambic or trochaic rhythmi admitted no effects similar to the substitution of dactyl or anapest in a metrum, or to a spondee, is an assumption unwarranted by either theory or fact.