(_γγ_) A _third_ source, to which again, independently of either the influence of the classic languages or the Arabic, we may trace the origins of rhyme and all that it implies, are the _Germanic_ languages, as we find them in their earliest Scandinavian development. As illustration of this we have the songs of the ancient Edda, which, though only in more recent times, collected and edited, unquestionably date from a former age. In these, as we shall see later on, it is not, it is true, the genuine rhyme-sound which is elaborated in its perfection, but rather an effective emphasis upon particular sounds of language, and a regularity defined by rule, with a definite repetition of both aspects. (_β_) Yet more important than the question of origin is the characteristic _difference_ between the new system and the old. I have already adverted to the fundamental feature of importance here; it only remains to establish it more narrowly. Rhythmical versification attained its most beautiful and richest development in the field of Hellenic poetry, in which we may discover the most eminent features of the type wherever it obtains. Briefly they are as follows: _First_, the sound, as such, of letters, syllables, or words does not here constitute its material, but rather the syllabic sound in its _temporal duration_, so that attention must neither exclusively be directed to particular syllables or words, nor to the purely qualitative similarity or identity of their sound. On the contrary, the sound still remains in inseparable union with the static time-measure of its specific duration; and in the forward movement of both the ear has to follow the value of every separate syllable no less than the principle which obtains in the rhythmical progression of all equally together. _Secondly_, the measure of long and short syllables, no less than that of rhythmical rise and fall, and varied animation derived from more deliberate caesurae and moments of pause, depends upon the _natural_ element of the language, without permitting any introduction of that type of accentuation, by virtue of which the actual _meaning_ of the word leaves its impress on a syllable or a word. The versification asserts itself in its collocation of feet, its verse accent, its caesurae, and so forth in this respect as fully independent as the language itself, which also, outside the domain of poetry, already accepts accentuation from the natural quantity of syllables and their relations of juxtaposition, and not from the significance of the root-syllable. On this account, _thirdly_, we have as the vital emphasis of certain syllables, first, the verse accent and rhythm, and, secondly, all other accentuation, both of which aspects, in their twofold contribution to the varied character of the whole, pass in and out of one another without any mutual derangement or suppression; and in like manner respectively they satisfy the claim of the poetical