EXCURSUS ON OLD IRISH METRIC. 91 



the other hand, Modern-Irish poetry with its word accent does not nccessarily rcqiiire 

 the same number of syllables in each line. May not this difierence have something 

 to do with that other difference, the change in the piacing of the metrical accent ? An 

 example will greatly help us in developing and illustrating our views. Let us take that 

 most frequent metre requiring seven syllables in every line. Whilst a poem of that 

 kind is generally handed down pretty correctly in our oldest Irish MSS., in those of 

 the last two centuries we find some lines containing eight, nine, ten, or even more 

 syllables. Take as an instance the opening rann of the Laoidh Oi/tn ar Th^ir na n- 

 Ogy as published by the Ossianic Society in their fifth volume. Every modern Irish- 

 man will read this with the following metrical accents : 



A Otsin uasail, a mhic an rtgh, 

 DoV fearr gniomh, gauge 's gUath, 

 Aithris duinn anois gan mhairg 

 Cionnos mhairis tar eis na bh-fiann, 



i, e, according to word accent and with four stresses in each line. Now there can be 

 no doubt that this poem was composed at a time when it was still necessary to have 

 a definite number of syllables in each line, and moreover, that its metre required seven 

 syllables. In order therefore to reconstruct it we should have to throw out superfluous 

 words. The first line, e. g. might have run thus in an Old- or Middle-Irish poem : 



A Oisin, a maic ind rig. 

 Why has tradition not stuck to this ? Why has it not preserved the seven syllables ? 

 Simply because when the mode of reading it was changed, when word accent and 

 metrical accent became identical, the line w^as somehow felt to be incomplete, and it 

 became necessary to fill up the gaps. For according to word accent the above verse 



would read thus : 



A Oisin, a matc ind rig, 



with three metrical accents only. uasail was therefore put in to have another, a fourth 

 accent. And why this? Because the old seven-syllable jietre also had four 

 ACCENTS. There can be no doubt how these accents were distributed. The rime- 

 word at the end naturally carried one, and thus in going back from the end of the line 

 to its beginning we are enabled to correctly place the metrical accents. Ail verses of 

 seven syllables thus have a trochaic movement, those of eight begin with an up-beat and 

 thereby receive an iambic character, e. g. 



tucc dam do serc, a matc mo de. 



The correctnessof our conclusions sofar isborne out by a veryimportant and trustworthy 

 witness that always ought to be heard in metrical matters, viz. music. In Irish national 

 music the melody does not concern itself about the word accent, musical and verbal 

 ACCENT ARE NOT IDENTICAL. Take as an instance any song in the collections of 

 Petrie and Joyce, e. g. the famous Le fdinne geal an Ine, Joyce, Ancient Irish INIusic, p. 8. 

 This song is composed in the following metre : % a db ^ c ^b. To read it properly 

 we must begin with an up-beat and read it like iambics. The tune to which it is set 



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