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A cognitive analysis of metrical irregularities in the ‘Ὥσπερ ξένοι’ book epigrams

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2018

Julie Boeten  and
Mark Janse
Julie Boeten
Affiliation:
Ghent [email protected]
Mark Janse
Affiliation:
Ghent [email protected]
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Abstract

This article considers the variation in the metres of the ‘ὥσπερ ξένοι’ epigrams, collected in the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (DBBE). In its canonical form, these epigrams follow a dodecasyllabic metrical pattern. The seemingly unmetrical decasyllabic and decatetrasyllabic variants are explained from a cognitive-linguistic perspective as the pairing of different cola – 5+5 and 7+7 instead of the usual 7+5 or 5+7. From this perspective, cola can be equated with the cognitive ‘idea’ or ‘intonation units’ (IUs) used in ordinary speech.

Keywords

Byzantine metreByzantine book epigramsmetrical irregularitiesintonation units‘principle of pairing’
Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 79 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, 2018 

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References

1 The DBBE is hosted by Ghent University at www.dbbe.ugent.be. Research for this paper was supported by grants from Ghent University's Special Research Fund (BOF/15/GOA/034) and the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (FWO 3F02016000401). Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the 7th U4 Winter School on Antiquity (Istanbul, March 2016), the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Belgrade, August 2016) and Varieties of Post-Classical and Byzantine Greek (Ghent, December 2016). We take the opportunity to thank the following colleagues for their useful remarks and suggestions: Klaas Bentein, Sien De Groot, Ilse De Vos, Kristoffel Demoen, Marc Lauxtermann, Peter Mackridge, Renaat Meesters, Racchele Ricceri and Maria Tomadaki.

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10 Bernard and Demoen, ‘Book epigrams’, 13, cf. infra under ‘3. The ὥσπερ ξένοι epigrams’.

11 This type of book epigram is called ‘colophon verse’ by Lauxtermann, M. D., Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres: Texts and Contexts (Vienna 2003) 200 Google Scholar.

12 Treu, K., ‘Der Schreiber am Ziel: Zu den Versen Ὥσπερ ξένοι χαίρουσιν. . . und änlichen’, in Dummer, J., Treu, K. and Richard, M. (eds), Studia Codicologica (Berlin 1977) 473–92Google Scholar; Brock, S., ‘The scribe reaches harbour’, Byzantinische Forschungen 21 (1995) 195–202 Google Scholar; P. Lemay, ‘De functie en de evolutie van de verzen ὥσπερ ξένοι. . . in Byzantijnse manuscripten’, unpublished MA thesis, Ghent University, 2013.

13 The ‘ὥσπερ ξένοι’ epigrams in the DBBE all date from the period 900-1500.

14 DBBE 22, 275, 799, 800, 1137, 1159, 1362, 1513, 1696, 1758, 1765, 1814, 1871, 2129, 2906, 3004, 3285, 3495, 3687, 3907, 4505, 4915, 4919, 5633. It should be noted that the exact number of occurrences may change in the future, as the DBBE is continually expanding. In April 2017, the total number of ‘ὥσπερ ξένοι’ epigrams in the DBBE was set at 159.

15 Text source by DBBE.

16 All cited epigrams in this article are what the DBBE calls ‘occurrences’ (as opposed to ‘types’), i.e. the faithful transcription of the text as it was found in the manuscript. No normalizations have been applied to these texts and all orthographic mistakes/variances are retained.

17 DBBE 1116, 1275, 1369, 1393, 1561, 1640, 1733, 1898, 1900, 1921, 1985, 2173, 5920, 5956, 5970, 6072, 7910, 7979, 8833.

18 Text source by Evangelatou-Notara, F., Συλλογὴ χρονολογημένων σημειωμάτων ἑλληνικῶν κωδίκων, 13ος αἰ. (Athens 1984) 150 Google Scholar.

19 An interesting parallel can be found in Syriac and Arabic manuscripts, where the same, popular simile frequently occurs, cf. McCollum, A. C., ‘The rejoicing sailor and the rotting hand: Two formulas in Syriac and Arabic colophons, with related phenomena in other languages’, Journal of Syriac Studies 18.1 (2015) 67–93 Google Scholar.

20 Bernard and Demoen, ‘Book epigrams’, 13.

21 Text source by Evangelatou-Notara, F., Χορηγοί-κτήτορες-δωρητές σε σημειώματα κωδίκων, Παλαιολόγειοι χρόνοι (Athens 2000) 257 Google Scholar.

22 A very similar variant is DBBE 2473 (Vatican, Bibl. Apostolica Vaticana - Ross. 887).

23 Text source by Kadas, S. D., Τὰ σημειώματα τῶν χειρογράφων τῆς ἱερᾶς Μεγίστης Μονῆς Βατοπαιδίου (Mount Athos 2000) 57 Google Scholar.

24 Maas, Der byzantinische Zwölfsilber, calls the inner caesura in the dodecasyllable Binnenschluβ rather than ‘caesura’, as he correctly believes the nature of the dodecasyllabic pause to be different from the caesura in prosodic metres. Based on Maas’ terminology, the inner caesura is often referred to with the letter ‘B’ followed by the number of syllables preceding the Binnenschluβ (B5 or B7).

25 Text source by Martini, E., Catalogus codicum graecorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae I (Milan 1906) 753 Google Scholar.

26 Text source by Hunger, H., Johannes Chortasmenos (ca. 1370-ca. 1436/37). Briefe, Gedichte und kleine Schriften. Einleitung, Regesten, Prosophographie, Texte (Vienna 1969) 72 Google Scholar.

27 The Byzantines continued calling the dodecasyllable ‘iambic trimiter’, as if it was still the very same metre of ancient authors. More educated scribes even preserved the archaic prosody in their dodecasyllabic poems, in order to maintain the illusion of an archaic metre, cf. P. Maas, Der byzantinische Zwölfsilber; M. D. Lauxtermann, ‘The velocity of pure iambs’; The Spring of Rhythm; A. Rhoby, ‘Vom jambischen Trimeter’.

28 Bernard, F., Writing and Reading Byzantine Secular Poetry (Oxford 2014) 243–4Google Scholar.

29 Text source by DBBE.

30 Treu, ‘Der Schreiber am Ziel’, 47.

31 DBBE 22 (Florence, Bibl. Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 60, Cod. 15, f. 205r).

32 DBBE 22, 170, 801, 876 (εὑρεῖν), 957, 972 (εὑρεῖν), 1146, 1499, 1700, 1941, 1988, 2284, 2305, 2955, 3472, 3673, 4055, 4156, 4223, 4572, 4590, 5403, 5514, 5618, 5799, 6049, 6052, 6782, 6907, 7647, 7846.

33 Text source by F. Evangelatou-Notara, Παλαιολόγειοι χρόνοι, 174.

34 Text source by DBBE.

35 DBBE 972 (last two lines), 1808 (first line), 1811 (first line), 1956 (second line), 3185 (second line), 4689 (first line), 5614 (last two lines), 5996 (first line).

36 Text source by Schartau, B., Codices graeci Haunienses (Copenhagen 1994) 435.Google Scholar

37 M. D. Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm, 51. On the previous page, he mentions four other hymns in the same manuscript: three of them also in heptasyllables, the other one in octosyllables.

38 M. Janse, Homerische metriek; Metrical Schemes of the Hexameter; Inleiding tot de Homerische taal en metriek.

39 Van Nuffelen, P., ‘John of Antioch, inflated and deflated. Or: how (not) to collect fragments of early Byzantine historians’, Byzantion 82 (2012) 446.Google Scholar

40 C. Thomas, The Acts of Peter, 40.

41 Bakker, E. J., Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse (Ithaca 1997).Google Scholar

42 Chafe, W., ‘Cognitive constraints on information flow’, in Tomlin, R. (ed.), Coherence and Grounding in Discourse: Outcome of a Symposium, Eugene, Oregon (Amsterdam 1987) 21–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Prosodic and functional units of language’, in Edwards, J. A. & Lampert, M. D. (eds), Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research (Hillsdale 1993) 33–43 Google Scholar; Discourse, Consciousness and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing (Chicago 1994); ‘The analysis of discourse flow’, in Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. and Hamilton, H. E. (eds), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (Oxford 2001) 673–87.Google Scholar

43 Soltic, ‘Late medieval Greek vernacular πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry’; ‘Distribution of object clitic pronouns’; ‘Late medieval Greek πάλιν’; ‘Vernacular medieval Greek romances’.

44 Mackridge, ‘Metrical structure of the oral decapentasyllable’; Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm.

45 Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm, 51.

46 Op. cit., 50.

47 Op. cit., 85.

48 Dewing, H. B., ‘The origin of the accentual prose rhythm in Greek’, The American Journal of Philology 31.3 (1910), 312–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Valiavitcharska, V., Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium: the Sound of Persuasion (Cambridge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Both Hörandner and Lauxtermann even assume that Byzantine accentual poetry has its earliest roots in rhetorical rhythm, cf. Hörandner, W., Der Prosarhythmus in der retorischen Literatur der Byzantiner (Vienna 1981)Google Scholar; Hörandner, W., ‘Beobachtungen zur Litararästhetik der Byzantiner. Einige byzantinische Zeugnisse zu Metrik und Rhythmik’, Byzantinoslavica 56.2 (1995) 279–90Google Scholar; Lauxtermann, The velocity of pure iambs; The Spring of Rhythm.

49 Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm, 77.

50 Text source by DBBE.

51 Text source by Efstratiades, S., ‘Ἁγιορειτικῶν κωδίκων σημειώματα’, Γρηγόριος ὁ Παλαμᾶς 3 (1919) 150.Google Scholar

52 DBBE 60, 1499, 2305, 3472, 3673, 4055, 5514, 6782.

53 DBBE 1499, 2045, 3472, 3673, 4055, 6907, 7647.

54 The same phenomenon occurs in DBBE 4156 (Athos, Monè Megistes Lavras Θ 147, f. 137r), which displays a very similar text but with some minor differences: χαίροντες instead of χαίρουσιν in the first line, εὑρεῖν instead of ἰδεῖν in the second line, the fourth line is omitted, and βιβλίου instead of βιβλίον in the last line.

55 There is no clear chronological evolution in the metrical irregularities of the ‘ὥσπερ ξένοι’ epigrams: mistakes occur at random from the ninth to the fifteenth century. Combinations with decapentasyllabic lines only emerge from the tenth century onwards (i.e. the genesis of the decapentasyllabic metre) and become considerably more popular during the fifteenth century.

56 For more on εὐρυθμία and its use in both poetry and prose, see M. D. Lauxtermann, ‘The velocity of pure iambs’, 19-20.