EXCURSUS ON OLD IRISH METRIC. 



93 



Edin. "tmthigb go luath dgus tnir 



Imthigh go liiath is tair a n-am. 



The following, then, I take to have been the development of Irish metric from the 

 earliest known times to the present day. In a first period, that of the Old- and Middle- 

 Irish language, the syllabizing principle with its rcgular alternation of stressed and 

 unstressed syllables (arsis and thesis) reigned paramount. In a second pcriod, the 

 exact limits of which have yet to be defined, the influence of the purely accentuating 

 metric of English poetry came to be felt so powerfully that the syllabizing principle 

 was given up. While the same number of stress-syllables was still retained, the 

 metrical accent was brought into harmony with the word-accent. Gaps that thus 

 sprang up in the verses were filled up by chevilles and other artifices. In a third and 

 last period the accentuating principle was completely adopted. 



As my friend, Dr. W. Wollner, informs me, we find the same development of metric 

 in the poetry of those South-SIavonic peoples by whom the influence of German 

 poetry was most felt. Thus in one and the same Slovenic song (from Krain) we have 

 in one verse the Old Slavonic syllabizing metric, eight syllables with four stresses : 



Prisla je neka hiida zvir 

 Prtsla je rntska z misett, 

 while in another verse the German accentuating principle is followed : 



Se je prtila neka hitjsi z-vir 

 Prtsel je med^ved z medfedceti. 

 These are instances of exactly the same nature as those given above from the Aided 

 Clainne Lir. 



I will now once more put together what I regard as the principal laws of 

 Old-Irish metric, and illustrate them by some examples. Every line inust consist of a 

 certain number of syllables. As a rule the last word (which may be of one, two, or 

 three syllables) is a rime-word corresponding to one in the second or third line. 

 These rime-words serve to bind together the single lines into couplets or quatrains, 

 They always carry the metrical accent. Every line has a pause or caesura which is 

 easily recognisable and always regular in metres of ten or more syllables, whilst those of 

 eight or less syllables show greater irregularity. Sometimes the words before the 

 caesura rime with each other as in the metre (ii) given below. AII other requisites 

 of Irish poetry are of a secondary nature ; for all the great varieties of Irish metres, 

 some of the most complicated of which I have noticed in the Revue Celtiquc, VI. 

 p. 191^, depend only on these two principal requisites, a certain number of syllables 

 and rime. There are verses with from three to twelve syllables variously arranged, 

 and the rime may be placed differently and be either monosyllabic or dissyllabic, 

 sometimes evcn trisyllabic. Beside the more usual metres and those noticed by 

 me in the Revue Celtique, the following may serve to illustrate what I have said. 

 I only notice their number of syllables, their rimes, their linc-pause, and their accents. 



* Windisch is wrong in saying in his ai ticle Kcltische Sprachcn (Ersch and Griiber's Encyclo- 

 psedia), p. 150 a, that the metrc a a a b c c c b\?, unusual in Old-Irish poetry. 



