Note 953 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 9)

I will not enter on the insoluble question as to what stanzas or parts of stanzas were sung by the boys and girls respectively. That the hymn was so sung in double chorus is intrinsically probable, and stated in the oracle, lines 20, 21. Some of the schemes which have been propounded are given in Wickham's Horace. I imagine that the stanzas may have been sung alternately except in the case of the first two and the last, but the ninth looks as though it might have been divided between the two choirs. Ferrero has a scheme of his own, p. 91 foll.; and if he had taken a little more pains might have worked out the whole problem satisfactorily.