Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Blaðsíða 33
It would seem that, to the author of this sequence — and this applies
to perhaps the majority of the sequence writers — an accent or stress
on the former syllable of the trochee, and on the latter one of the
iambic, was a rather unknown thing, or at least that it was so lightly
felt that it might be placed on syllables which had no reason to be
accentuated. But notwithstanding how feeble the sensation of uneven
heaviness of the two syllables of a foot might be, it seems to have suf-
ficed to make a difference felt between the trochaic and iambic metre.
One thing is clear, in parties of sequence melodies (“correctly”
transcribed) of the kind of which we have just seen samples, the metre
of the words is abolished, so that we are put off with prose. It is
tempting to think that in such cases the composer has not been able to
appreciate the poem as poetry. And to the congregations, not having
Latin as their mother tongue, and for whom an understanding might
have been lacking or have been difficult, the song might easily have
become disjointed into single syllables.
bleiben rhythmische Hårten ... (contribules 12, 3; Fidé purgat 15, 2; Morum silét
16, 1; Martis ruit 16, 2; India distans 17, 1; Fidém firmåt 18, 2; Et vitae 18, 3);
besonders arg ist der Widerstreit zwischen Wort- und Versakzent im Strophen-
paare 23 u. 24.”
Of the “irregular” half-verses it may suffice to speak of those numbered 15-18.
The first of these runs thus:
Philippus lustrans Scythiam
Fide purgat spurcitiam
Veteris perfidiae.
To our feeling line 1 and 2 are iambic, and line 3 trochaic. But the number of
syllables in the respective lines is the same as in the undoubtedly trochaic verses.
When the AH thinks “Fide purgat” hard, scanned as iambics, it would not be so,
taken as trochees (the same goes for “Morum silet”, “Martis ruit” etc.). And when
“India distans” in 17 is reckoned iambic, with accent on “-di-”, there can be
nothing to prevent an accentuation of ”—thi—” in “Scythiam” in 15, which would
take place if the whole verse were scanned as trochaic.
It may well be, that there really is a change of metre in this sequence, such
as is thought by the AH; but the apparent uncertainty of, or indifference to,
on what syllable the accent is placed, seems to imply that “the conflict between
the accent of the word and that of the metre” must have been considerably
less - if any at all - at the time here concerned, perhaps partially owing to the
faet that Latin was a foreign, a dead language, which had to be learned by art.
XXXI