length can be regarded as strophic, is refuted not only by the Syriac[1] but also by the post-biblical Jewish poetry. [2] We find the following variations: strophes of the same com- pass followed by those of different compass (e. g. 4. 4. 6. 6); as in the chiasmus, the outer and inner strophes of the same compass (e. g. 4. 6. 6. 4); the first and third, the second and fourth corresponding to one another (e. g. 4. 6. 4. 6); the mingling of the strophes repeated antistrophically, i. e. in the inverted order (e. g. 4. 6. 7. 7. 6. 4); strophes of equal com- pass surrounding one of much greater compass (e. g. 4. 4. 10. 4. 4.), what Koster calls the pyramidal schema; strophes of equal compass followed by a short closing stanza (e. g. 3. 3. 2); a longer strophe forming the base of the whole (e. g.5. 3. 3. 7), and these are far from being all the different figures, which the Old Testament songs and more especially the Psalms present to us, when we arrange their contents in stichs.
With regard to the compass of the strophe, we may expect to find it consisting of as many as twelve lines according to the Syrian and the synagogue poetry. The line usually con- sists of three words, or at least only of three larger words; in this respect the Hebrew exhibits a capacity for short but emphatic expressions, which are inadmissible in German [or English]. This measure is often most uniformly preserved throughout a considerable length, not only in the Psalms but also in the Book of Job. For there is far more reason for saying that the strophe lies at the basis of the arrangement of the Book of Job, than for G. Hermann’s observation of strophic arrangement in the Bucolic writers and Kochly’s in the older portions of Homer.
VII. TEMPLE MUSIC AND PSALMODY.
The Théra contains no directions respecting the use of song and music in divine worship except the commands con-
- ↑ vid. Zingerle in the D. M. Z. x. 123, 124.
- ↑ vid. Zunz, Synagogale Poesie des Mittclultcrs, 8. 92—94.
tur der Hebrécr, 8. 87, who maintains that strophes of uncqual length are opposed to the simplest laws of the lyric song and melody. But the demands which melody imposes on the formation of the verse and the strophe were not so stringent among the ancients as now, and moreover — is not the sonnet a lyric poem?
