To begin with, the πολιτικὸς στίχος does not impose many metrical constraints and is thus not at all constitute a rigid metrical system:
“Weiters is darauf hinzuweisen, dass der metrische Druck in volkssprachlichen Werken im Fünfzehnsilber nicht so gross war, dass er Sprache in ihrer Struktur umgestalten hätte können” (Hinterberger 1993: 165)
Indeed, the πολιτικὸς στίχος allows a lot of what can be called “metrical elasticity”: “Es läßt sich nur ein Minimum an Regeln für diesen Vers aufstellen” (Beck 1988: 15; cf. Politis 2010: 148). Let me go through these rules.
4.1.1.1 The (few) rules and how they can be stretched
The most compelling requirement is its length: each verse must contain fifteen syllables (hence “dekapentasyllabos”, “δεκαπεντασύλλαβος” or “Fünfzehnsilber” or simply “15syllaber”) (Lauxtermann 1999). Nonetheless, even here we sometimes encounter deviations:
“Die Dichter hatten oder nahmen sich die Möglichkeit, die “poetische Freiheit”, (...) den normalen Fünfzehnsilber um zwei Silben zu erweitern bei Wahrung der normalen Verteilung der akzenttragenden Silben” (Kambylis 1995: 66f.; cf. Agapitos 2006a: 245)
Hypermetrical (more than 15 syllables) verses seem to be more acceptable than hypometrical (fewer than 15 syllables) ones. Therefore, Nørgaard & Smith (1975: 16), for
instance, have only emended the hypometrical verses in their edition of the Ilias
Byzantina.
These fifteen syllables are divided into two standard half-verses by a fixed break or caesura after the eighth syllable (from now on marked with the sign #). In principle, only the even syllables are stressed (which results in a iambic pattern; cf. infra 4.1.3), as well the first and the ninth syllable of each half-verse (cf. infra 5.1.2). However, not every even syllable must of course be stressed: there is a wide variety of rhythmical variation of stress on the even syllables, so that it leaves the poet enough room to avoid monotony (Lendari 2007: 128).2
Moreover, as in ancient metres, elision and hiatus are very frequently used strategies to fit the metrical requirements.3 Accordingly, we cannot automatically consider all
half-verses that contain more syllables than the required number of eight or seven syllables metrically incorrect. The following contrastive pair (taken from the parallel manuscripts of the Chronicle of Morea) is very suitable for illustrating elision (i.e. the ejection of a vowel when a word ends with a vowel and the next one also begins with one) and its “counterpart” hiatus (i.e. the absence of this vowel omission: the two vowels are fully pronounced):4
(1) τὸ ὅσον ποιήσῃ νὰ στερχτοῦν, # νὰ τὸ ἔχουσιν πληρώνει. (CoM H 318)
Lurier (1964: 76): “[made him a promise] to ratify and fulfil whatever he might effect” cf. τὸ ὅτι ποιήσῃ νὰ στρεχτοῦν # καὶ νὰ τὸ ἐκπληρώσουν. (CoM P 318)
At first sight – or better: count –, the second half-verse of H contains eight syllables. However, if we assume that an elision takes place between τό and ἔχουσιν, this half- verse satisfies the required number of seven syllables. In P, on the other hand, a hiatus must occur between τό and ἐκπληρώσουν in order to “save” the number of seven syllables.
2 Cf. Bakker & van Gemert (1972: 99); Apostolopoulos (1984: 222). 3 At the caesura, however, elision is avoided; cf. infra 5.1.2.
4 Note that in Modern Greek these terms are used in a different way: we speak of elision when the omission is
reflected in the typeface and thus written, while hiatus refers to a non-written omission. Furthermore, this omission is not restricted to vowels across word boundaries, but can also take place within words.
Synizesis (i.e. two originally syllabic vowels are pronounced as a single syllable) of i and e with a following vowel is another common strategy to maintain the required number of syllables (Lendari 2007: 130)5; again, a parallel pair is clarifying:
(2) ἂς ἔχω εἴδησιν μικρὴν # κ’ εὐθέως νὰ τοῦ ἀποστείλω. (CoM H 6550)
Lurier (1964: 259): “let me have a short notice, and I shall send them to him at once” cf. ἂς ἔχω εἴδησιν μικρὴν # εὐθέως νὰ τὰ στείλω. (CoM P 6550)
In P the adverb εὐθέως contains three separate syllables, while in H the ε and ω must be pronounced as one simple syllable.6
Moreover, these metrical phenomena are not only important for achieving the correct number of syllables, but also to get the right (i.e. even) syllable stressed, for instance:
(3) τοῦ κόσμου ὅλου οἱ ἅπαντες # ἐκατηγόρησάν τον (CoM H 83) Lurier (1964: 69): “all the men of the world censured him”
The first half-verse consists of nine syllables, so elision must take place once. There are three possible places where it can occur: between κόσμου and ὅλου, between ὅλου and οἱ and between oἱ and ἅπαντες. We can assume an elision between either ὅλου and οἱ or οἱ and ἅπαντες, while a hiatus must occur between κόσμου and ὅλου because of the stress pattern: if elision took place between κόσμου and ὅλου, the third syllable would be stressed instead of the fourth.
In the next verse, synizesis takes place in ἀπολογίαν to get the eighth syllable stressed. In Μορέαν, on the other hand, synizesis does not occur, as the fourteenth syllable needs to carry the stress:7
(4) κ’ ἐζήτησέ του ἀπολογίαν # ν’ ἀπέλθῃ στὸν Μορέαν (CoM H 6495) Lurier (1964: 257): “and asked his leave to go to Morea”
Besides, it must be admitted that a stressed odd syllable is not that unusual:
5 Cf. Apostolopoulos (1984: 14); Browning (19992: 77); Hinterberger (2006: 8). 6 Note that elision takes place between τοῦ and ἀποστείλω in H.
7 That Μορέαν is a good candidate for synizesis is shown by the following verse:
(1) ἐκεῖσε γὰρ εἰς τὸν Μορέαν # στὸν πρίγκιπα Γυλιάμον (CoM H 3482) “there in Morea, with the princeps Guilaume”
Here, synizesis takes place in order to get the eighth syllable stressed. Between brackets: note that in Γυλιάμον synizesis is accompanied by a shift of the accent; cf. infra 4.1.1.2.
“the metre always allowed considerable flexibility in the position of stress-accent (...) no hard-and-fast rules can be laid down” (Alexiou & Holton 1976: 23; cf. Condoravdi & Kiparsky 2004: 175)
M. Jeffreys (1974: 148; fn 11) is more concrete:
“The only invariable rules are the stress-accents on 14 and either on 6 or 8. There are no stresses on 7, 13 and 15, except occasionally on unimportant words (articles, pronouns, prepositions, etc.) at 7 and 13”
Indeed, as the above statement by M. Jeffreys points to, a special category is formed by the “unimportant words” or “mots accessoires” (Apostolopoulos 1984: 37), which include conjunctions, prepositions, definite articles, particles, object clitic pronouns (OCPs) and some demonstratives (Apostolopoulos 1984: 37). These words are irrelevant with regard to the stress pattern and accordingly should not be taken into account: “l’accent des mots ‘synnomes’ n’ayant aucune valeur métrique” (Apostolopoulos 1984: 213). Interestingly, this can tell us something about the status of a certain word. We will see that the syllabic position of πάλιν, which is traditionally analysed as an adverb, reinforces our thesis that it often functions as mere particle – as a DM, to use the modern linguistic terminology – in the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry (cf. infra 5.3.3.2). Especially with regard to the ancient particles such as γάρ, γοῦν, δ(έ), μέν and οὖν, it has been sufficiently observed that their written accent is of an artificial, merely conventional nature (cf. Wackernagel 1892: 377).8 Noret (1995 & 1998) has repeatedly
shown that these particles often lack an accent in Byzantine manuscripts (cf. Hörander 1981: 34).9 With regard to OCPs, it is the convention to accentuate them only when they
stand before the verb. As such, the written accent on the third syllable in the following example does not play a role with regard to the actual stress pattern, since the accent on the OCP τούς is conventional:
(5) Ὁ δοὺξ τοὺς ἀποδέχθηκεν # μετὰ χαρᾶς μεγάλης (PP 306) “the leader welcomed them with great joy”
The artificiality of the accent is confirmed by the fact that OCPs do not receive an accent if they appear postverbally.
8 Cf. Noret & De Vocht (1985-86); cf. infra 4.2.1.1.
4.1.1.2 Spelling vs. real pronunciation
This all points to the general problem of the discrepancy between theory and practice: to what extent do the spelling conventions in the manuscripts reflect the real pronunciation? The case is that the scribes aim at the ancient spelling conventions, which do no longer correspond to the spoken language of the time:
“Perhaps the most striking feature here is the mismatch between the colloquial pronunciation required to meet the demands of the metre (...) and the conservative orthography which, if taken seriously, would produce many immetrical lines” (Horrocks 20102: 353)
We can thus expect that a number of metrical irregularities can simply be explained as divergences between the written text and the spoken word (Moennig 2004: 157).10 A nice
example is the ancient preposition εἰς: if followed by the definite article in Modern Greek (which normally uses the prepositional form σε), it contracts to στόν/στήν/στό/etc. (Holton, Mackridge & Philippaki-Warburton 2004: 25). However, in the manuscripts of the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry we sometimes still find the full form εἰς, although this results in (graphically) hypermetrical verses:
(6) ὡς ὑπερβαίνουν ἄνωθεν # οἱ κορυφὲς εἰς τὸν τοῖχον (AB 771) “so that the tops [of the trees] go beyond the wall”
Hence, we can assume that the actual pronunciation was στόν.
Another well-known example reflecting the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation concerns the above outlined phenomenon of synizesis. In Modern Greek, synizesis is usually indicated by a shift of the accent, so we would have expected ἀπολογιάν instead of ἀπολογίαν in example CoM H 6495 (cf. Browning 19992: 77).
However, the scribes maintain the ancient notation, as is well-documented:
“in many, even rather late manuscripts of vernacular texts the accent is placed on the first of two consecutive vowels, while we know that in the spoken language they had been synizesised long before (e.g. Συρία-Συριά, καρδία-καρδιά)” (Hinterberger 2006: 8; cf. Lendari 2007: 130; fn 5)
Finally, it is interesting to note that metrical irregularities have been related to oral performance (cf. supra 1.1.2.5.1.1): it is very plausible that a number of verses judged
10 Cf. Hinterberger (2006: 8): “I would suggest that in many cases it is a pure orthographical convention that
incorrect according to the rules we derive today were made to sound metrically perfect in an oral performance. According to Moennig (2004: 212), such metrical irregularities could easily be smoothed out when performing aloud. Marboeuf (2009: 55) even considers the fact that so many metrical “mistakes” vanish when spoken aloud as confirmation of an oral performance:
“seule la diction, grâce à des aphérèses, des apocopes ou des crases faciles à réaliser oralement, peut rétablir une juste métrique, ce qui confirme par ailleurs la primauté de la transmission orale”
In sum, we ‒ and especially those among us who have editorial ambitions ‒ may not conclude too easily that a verse is metrically incorrect.