go THE BATTLE OF VENTRY. 



that there is not one page of Old-Irish poetry in which there would not be one example 

 at least of such prefixes having the metrical ictus. This will especially be the case, if 

 we are to read all verses of seven syllables as Zimmer wants us to read Fiacc's hymn ; 

 but however we may scan the seven syllables, we cannot escape such contradictions. 

 If according to Zimmer's law we read dogyn in one line, we may find that we have to 

 read dogni in the next. In our poem, e. g. we must read dotii in lines 1004 and loio. 

 We may therefore safely say that Zimmer has deceived himself, and that if he had 

 apphed his law to a few more poems, he must have become conscious of his error. 

 But let us now see how he arrives at his theory, On p. 159 he says: * If we wish to 

 subordinate Old-Irish metric to either of the two great metrical principles, this can only 

 be to the accentuating ;' and on p. 155 he again talks of * the only two kinds of metric 

 prevailing in the Indo-European languages, the prosodiacal and the accentuating.' 

 This may be true for what he himself calls ' real, natural ' poetry, but I ask is that 

 the character of Irish poetry, or of what has come down to us under that name ? 

 Nothing more artificial and unnatural than this can well be imagined. 



Moreover, Professor Zimmer seems to ignore the fact that there were other Indo- 

 European peoples who knew no other law in their metrical compositions than 

 that of counting syllables, i. e. of tying down the metrical lines to a fixed number 

 of syllables, irrespective either of word accent or quantity. (Cf. Zeuss^, p. 934 : 

 ' satis habent parem syllabarum numerum versibus tribuisse.') All the older Slavonic 

 and Lithuanian poetry is of this kind, and the Irish would thus certainly not stand 



alone. 



On p. 157 Zimmer then comes forward with 0'Donovan's statement that Modern- 

 Irish poetry of the last two centuries (0'Don. says no more) is read according to 

 word accent. No doubt 0'Donovan's statement is correct, but if Zimmer makes it 

 the starting-point of his inquiry, and if moreover, to exemplify it, he gives us a translation 

 into Irish of Moore's ' Harp that once ' and an extract from the Archbishop of Tuam's 

 translation of the Uiad, he again deceives himself and his readers. No more unscholarly 

 way could well be taken. If a people with an inferior metrical system (as that of 

 counting syllables certainly is) come into contact with a literature where a superior law 

 of metrical composition is followed, they will naturally adopt it. This was the case in 

 the Siavonic literatures, and we must be prepared for the same thing happening in 

 Irish literature. The translator of JMoore therefore naturally adopts the metreofhis 

 original, and the Archbishop in translating his Homer chose the heroic couplet, as did 

 Pope before him. 



We are therefore justified in saying that Professor Zimmer has failed on all points, 

 and if we now proceed to develop our own views, we shall for our first proposition, 

 which is a negative one, viz. that Old-Irish poetry was not read according 

 TO WORD ACCENT, adduce Zimmer as our authority. For, as we have shown above, 

 Zimmer has wished and tried to prove the accentuating character of Old-Irish 

 poetry, and has signally failed to do so. 



What we positively know about Old-Irish poetry is that EACH VERSE WAS CONFINED 

 TO A STRICT NUMBER OF SYLLABLES ; a rule from which there is no deviation. On 



