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within the narrow limits of a melody that is repeated line after line many and subtle variations are introduced. . . . In Serbo-Croat stress, quantity and intonation are all phonemically relevant; and it might be supposed that these factors would be suppressed by the superimposition of melody. Again, those competent to judge are agreed that this is not the case: the natural rhythms of speech, while to some extent overlaid or obscured, are still perceptible.45 |
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A fragment of an inscription from Epidaurus (11) throws a faint light on the singing of hexameters at a later period. It carried the text of a hymn, in all likelihood to Asclepius, with musical notes over the first verse only. The implication is that this line of melody was to be repeated, or adapted, to all the other verses too. It does not accord at all with the word accents. Besides the notes over the text there are apparently a few more after the end of the line, representing an instrumental flourish or cadence.46 |
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Mesomedes' hymns to the Sun and Nemesis (18-19) show us another style of singing stichic verse. Here there is no trace of a fixed melody, though certain patterns do occur more than once. The songs are through-composed in accordance with the word accents, only a few of which are violated. Each line comes to an end with a strongly marked rhythmic clausula and pause: there is no attempt to blur or break up the stichic structure. A fair proportion of the lines, including the final one,47 end on the tonic; but wherever they end, some sense of continuity is maintained by the way the next line begins. We see the same characteristics in the Berlin Paean (40) and in the settings of dramatic iambics in the Oxyrhynchus 2436, Oslo, and Michigan papyri (29, 31, 32). |
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Strophic forms fall rather clearly into two categories, which may be called closed and open. |
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The 'closed' strophe was typical of Ionian and Lesbian solo lyric and Athenian popular songs, and it remained common in post-Classical times. It was, at least in some cases, a conventional structure that served for many different songs. The elegiac couplet (p. 152) is the outstanding example of this, and the Alcaic and |
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45 R. Auty in A. T. Hatto (ed.), Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry. i (London, 1980), 202. |
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46SEG 30. 390 (inscribed in the 3rd c. AD, but the hymn and melody may be some centuries older). See my discussion in ZPE 63 (1986), 39-46. |
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47 At any rate in the Sun hymn; the notes for the last few words of the Nemesis hymn are missing. but it seems safe to make this assumption. |
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