Medieval rhetoric and poetic to 1400 : $b Interpreted from representative worksBaldwin, Charles Sears
History
Medieval rhetoric and poetic to 1400 : $b Interpreted from representative works
Baldwin, Charles Sears
Literature, Medieval -- History and criticism; Poetics -- History -- To 1500; Rhetoric, Medieval
Less popular, more literary measures, though some of them were used
early in the hymnaries, seem to have been interpreted as _rhythmi_ more
slowly. This, indeed, is what one would expect; but the evidence is not
decisive. The Sapphic stanza, the beautiful meter of the second poem of
Boethius,[44] even iambic trimeter, were in time transformed. But in
hymns they were comparatively infrequent; and for other uses they were
revived with what seems clearly quantitative intention and achievement.
Either rendering is beautiful for one of the few Sapphic poems that are
essentially hymns, a hymn for Sunday Lauds.
Ecce iam noctis tenuatur umbra;
Lucis aurora rutilans coruscat;
Nisibus totis rogitemus omnes
Cunctipotentem,
Ut Deus nostri miseratus omnem
Pellat languorem, tribuat salutem,
Donet et patris pietate nobis
Regna polorum.
Præstet hoc nobis deitas beata
Patris et nati pariterque sancti
Spiritus, cuius reboatur omni
Gloria mundo.
AH 51: 31.[45]
The most striking verse in the Bangor manuscript is that of the familiar
Communion hymn.
Sancti, venite, Christi corpus sumite
Sanctum bibentes, quo redempti, sanguinem,
Salvati Christi corpore et sanguine,
A quo refecti laudes dicamus Deo,
Hoc sacramento corporis et sanguinis
Omnes exuti ab inferni faucibus.
Dator salutis, Christus filius Dei,
Mundum salvavit per crucem et sanguinem;
Pro universis immolatus Dominus
Ipse sacerdos exsistit et hostia....
Folio 10 _verso_; AH 51: 298.
The spondaic opening and the marked cæsura may be reminiscent of the
_Quamvis fluente dives auri gurgite_ of Boethius;[46] and the composition
is far superior to the Bangor habit in sense of time values. Not only
Irish and popular, but probably much older than this manuscript,[47]
the hymn may have been composed as a _metrum_. By either rendering it
is unusually, and at the same time expertly, free. Though the spread of
stress rhythm carried some verse that is rude and mechanical, as in this
manuscript, it did not of itself forfeit time values, and it opened in
the old language new effects of verse.
4. Poetic Conceptions
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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