The “prose” Sequences were not the direct antecedents of Abaelard’s hymns. Yet both sprang from the freely devising spirit of melody and song; and therefore those hymns are of this free-born lineage more truly than they are descendants of antique forms. To be sure, every possible accentual rhythm, built as it must be of trochees, iambics, anapaests, or dactyls, has unavoidably some antique quantitative antecedent; because the antique measures exhausted the possibilities of syllabic combination. Yet antecedence is not source, and most of Abaelard’s verses by their form and spirit proclaim their genesis in the creative exigencies of song as loudly as they disavow any antique parentage. For example, there may be some far echo of metrical asclepiads in the following accentual and rhyme-harnessed twelve-syllable verse: “Advenit veritas, umbra praeteriit, Post noctem claritas diei subiit, Ad ortum rutilant superni luminis Legis mysteria plena caliginis.” But the echo if audible is faint, and surely no antique whisper is heard in “Est in Rama Vox audita Rachel flentis Super natos Interfectos Ejulantis.” Nor in “Golias prostratus est, Resurrexit Dominus, Ense jugulatus est Hostis proprio; Cum suis submersus est Ille Pharao.” The variety of Abaelard’s verse seems endless. One or two further examples may or may not suggest any antecedents in those older forms of accentual verse which followed the former metres: “Ornarunt terram germina, Nunc caelum luminaria. Sole, luna, stellis depingitur, Quorum multus usus cognoscitur.” In this verse the first two lines are accentual iambic dimeters; while the last two begin each with two trochees, and close apparently with two dactyls. The last form of line is kept throughout in the following: “Gaude virgo virginum gloria, Matrum decus et mater, jubila, Quae commune sanctorum omnium Meruisti conferre gaudium.” Next come some simple five-syllable lines, with a catching rhyme: “Lignum amaras Indulcat aquas Eis immissum. Omnes agones Sunt sanctis dulces Per crucifixum.” In the following lines of ten syllables a dactyl appears to follow a trochee twice in each line: “Tuba Domini, Paule, maxima, De caelestibus dans tonitrua, Hostes dissipans, cives aggrega. Doctor gentium es praecipuus, Vas in poculum factus omnibus, Sapientiae plenum haustibus.” These examples of Abaelard’s rhythms may close with the following curiously complicated verse: “Tu quae carnem edomet Abstinentiam, Tu quae carnem decoret Continentiam, Tu velle quod bonum est his ingeris Ac ipsum perficere tu tribuis. Instrumenta Sunt his tua Per quos mira peragis, Et humana Moves corda Signis et prodigiis.”