Note 45 — Chapter IV · POETIC, OLD AND NEW (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURIES)

Blume rejects the ascription to St. Gregory the Great; and the hymn may belong to the next period. Cf. Nocte surgentes vigilemus omnes, page 136. Any one who will render in time rhythm the most familiar of all Sapphics, the “Integer vitæ” of Horace, then sing it to the familiar college tune, then render it as a rhythmus, will realize practically much of what is involved in interpreting a given text of this period of transition. Greenough’s Accentual rhythm in Latin (Harvard Studies IV. 105) pointed out in 1893 that quantitative correctness in medieval use of the Sapphic does not preclude accentual preoccupation.