§ 12. Alliterative Verse the common property of all Germanic Peoples. Alliterative verse is not a peculiarity of Old English poetry alone, but it was the common property of all Germanic peoples. We find it in the earliest OHG. monuments (Hildebrandslied, Muspilli etc.), in the OS. Heliand and in the fragments of an OS. Genesis, which were found in 1894; finally, too, in the ON. Edda songs. It is true that alliterative verse varies slightly amongst the various Germanic peoples. It is especially the compass of the verse which varies. The shortest are the ON. verses, which generally contain four or five syllables, rarely more, e.g. Voluspá 6: Ar var alda þar er Ymir bygđi vara sandr ne sær (4-6) gap var ginnunga en gras hvergi (5-4) iord fannsk æva OE. verses are rather longer. In Beowulf about one third contain four syllables, the others contain generally five or six. Sometimes verses with seven or eight syllables occur, e.g. Beow. 43 ff.: Nalæs hĩ hine læssan peod-gestreonum bonne pa dydon be hine æt frumsceafte ford onsendon anne ofer yde umbor-wesende. lacum tēodan (7-4) (4-5) (7-4) (6-5) (6-5) (4-5) (5-5) (4-4) Beow. 316 ff.: Mal is me to feran! Fæder alwalda OHG. alliterative verses, on the contrary, seldom contain four or five syllables only. Generally they have six, seven or more syllables, e.g. Muspilli 6 ff.: uuanta ipu sia daz Satanazses kisindi kiuuinnit (10-6) daz leitit sia sār dār iru leid uuirdit, in fuir enti in finstrï (5-6) daz ist rehto virinlth ding. (7-8) In the OS. Heliand finally sometimes verses of four or five syllables occur. Generally, however, the number of the syllables is much greater, and even exceeds ten, e.g. Heliand 120 ff.: Gabriel bium ic hētan, the gio for goda standu (7-7) anduuard for them alouualdon, ne sĩ that hē mē an is arundi huuarod (8-12) sendean uuillea. Nu hiet he mẽ an thesan sid faran. (4-10). It is clear that the principles underlying the structure of the alliterative verse amongst all Germanic peoples must have been the same, in spite of the varying length of these verses; that these principles must be traced back to a common foundation; and that therefore a theory concerning alliterative verse, which claims to be correct, must be capable of comprehending and explaining the alliterative verse of all Germanic peoples. § 13. Origin of Alliterative Verse. It is highly probable that the Germanic alliterative verse is, as ten Brink says (Gesch. d. engl. Lit. I, 28), "a heritage of the Indo-Germanic period", since it is closely related to a metre, which according to recent researches, (cp. e.g. Allen, Über den Ursprung des homerischen Versmasses, ZfvglSprachf. 24, 556 ff.) lies at the foundation of the hexameter, which is used for Greek and Latin epic poetry. This metre is the so-called iambic dimeter: __Tu_lu_l or ××××××××, which occurs in Beowulf in unshortened form (1. 234 a: gewāt him pa to warode). NOTE. Since we possess some 30,000 lines of OE. alliterative verse, and since in length OE. verse lies about midway between the shorter ON. and the longer OHG. precisely OE, verse which is best fitted to give us information with regard to the character and structure of old Germanic alliterative verse. and OS. verse, it is § 14. Division into Stanzas. ON. alliterative verse is composed in stanzas of various length. The oldest kind of stanza, the so-called fornyraislag consisted of four alliterative long lines (cp. stanza 6 Voluspá in § 12). In the earliest OE. poetry, too, alliterative long lines seem to have been composed in four-line stanzas, since we still have traces of such stanzas in parts of Beowulf, e.g. Beow. 312-319: Him þā hilde-dēor hof mōdigra torht getähte, Mal is me to mid är-stafum þæt hie him tō mihton güđ-beorna sum word æfter cwæd: féran! Fæder alwalda eowic gehealde Here the eight half-lines of the stanzas are grouped as follows: in the first stanza 5+3, or more accurately 5+(2+1) half-lines; in the second stanza (1+4)+3 half-lines. The strongest pause takes place in the middle of the third half-line. In another stanza the grouping is 3+5; cp. Beow. 286 to 289: Weard madelōde ombeht unforht: scearp scyld-wiga worda ond worca, þær on wicge sæt 'ghwædres sceal gescad witan, sẽ be wel benced.' Other examples of four-line stanzas in Beowulf are found in Beow. 34-37. 43-46. 340-343. 344-347. 452-455. 658-661. 1059-62. 1228-31. 1386-89. 1888-91. 1892-95. 1896-1889. 2720 to 23. 2802-5. 2809-12. 2813-16. 2817-20. Many others occur. The Cadmon Hymn, too, if one omits the unnecessary last verse, consists of two four-line stanzas, the first of which falls into 5+3, the second into 4+4 half-lines. At the same time the last line of each stanza is a refrain. Nu we sculon herigean heofonrīces weard, weorc wuldr-fæder, swa he wundra gehwæs He ærest scoop eordan bearnum heofon to hrōfe halig scyppend; pa middangeard moncynnes weard, Although, from what has been said, it is prob able that a stanza, consisting of four long or eight short lines, similar to the ON. fornyrdislag, was known in OE. poetry, yet, on the other hand, Möller goes too far, in his attempt to reduce the whole Beowulf and the other remnants of the OE. 'folk-epic' to four-line stanzas. He has succeeded in doing so only by dint of most violent and arbitrary omissions and alterations. Yet, the fact that we often find in Beowulf a sentence, consisting of 1/2 long lines or 3 short lines, at the end of a section, must be attributed to the effect of the old stanza division (5+3 short lines), e.g. NOTE. One OE Men ne cunnon hwyrftum scriđad. secg wisade, land-gemyrcu. hine fyrwyt bræc hwæt þa men wäron. ofost is selest hwanan ĕowre cyme syndon. poem (cp. § 100) falls into stanzas of two long lines or four short lines; but the rime itself causes this division. In Deor we have a poem consisting of stanzas of various lengths (3-15 long lines) with the refrain: pas ofereode, pisses swā mæg. |