The elegiac couplet

In conjunction with the dactylic hexameter, Bede also discusses the elegiac couplet, which consists of a hexameter line followed by a pentameter. In his introduction to the subject, Bede has seen it fit to warn his reader that the pentameter only appears together with the hexameter line,²⁰¹ an observation which, as he cautiously implies, he has made on his own. This is something that previous generations presumably took for granted, but Bede, ever wary of overestimating his reader, has stated it explicitly. His definition of the dactylic pentameter line and its structure are taken from Mallius Theodorus, who is also his main source on the lyric metres, probably because his definitions are simpler and more practical than those of many other grammarians, and unencumbered by excessive theoretical speculation. His example of the pentameter line is taken from the second line of the couplet by Venantius Fortunatus which also provided him with the model for the hexameter. Once again, Bede has facilitated the scansion of the line by dividing it into feet that correspond with Mallius’s description of the metre:

Huic cognatum est et quasi familiariter adhaerens, ita ut sine ipsius praesidio numquam id positum viderim, metrum dactylicum pentametrum, quod recipit spondeum loco primo et secundo, dactylum locis omnibus, catalecton in medio et in fine. Huius exemplum:

Laetan.turque pi.is. agmina. sancta cho.ris (Ven. Fort. carm. 8, 3, 2).²⁰²

[The dactylic pentameter is related to the hexameter and, as it were, clings intimately to it, so that I have never seen the pentameter used without the other being in

attendance. It takes a spondee in the first and second foot, a dactyl in all feet, and a catalectic foot in the middle and at the end. An example of this meter is:

Laetan.turque pi.is. agmina. sancta cho.ris.

(And the holy host rejoice in sacred choirs).]²⁰³

200 Heikkinen 2004, 27.

201 This observation is, indeed, true, as far as extant literary works are considered. The best-known exception is the anonymous Pompeian inscriptional poem “Nihil durare potest tempore perpetuo” (CIL IV 9123), famously used by Carl Orff in his Catulli carmina. All four lines of the poem are in the dactylic pentameter.

202 DAM 10, 20-25.

203 Trans. Kendall 1991, 98-99.

To avoid confusion, Bede also presents an alternative way of dividing the pentameter line, which, as he is quick to point out, is impractical as it ignores the central caesura of the line, as well as obscuring its dactylic nature. According to this model, the pentameter line is cut up into metrical feet of similar lengths so that the beginning of the line has two dactyls, and the end, two anapaests.²⁰⁴ Bede does not condemn this theory outright, but cleverly, and with characteristically wry modesty, demonstrates its impracticality with a line of his own,

constructed from two identical half-lines.²⁰⁵ Bede’s analysis shows that the hexameter is, for him, the primary metre and the pentameter its derivative:

Huius metri versus quidam ita scandendos astruunt, ut quinque absolutos pedes eis inesse doceant, spondeum sive dactylum loco primo et secundo, spondeum tertio semper, quarto et quinto anapestum, veluti si dicas:

Quaerite regna poli, quaerite regna poli,

quaerite dactylus, regnapo dactylus, liquae spondeus, ritere anapestus, gnapoli anapestus. Quod rationi eiusdem metri, ni fallor, minus videtur esse conveniens, cum universi qui huic metro usi sunt versum omnem in medio diviserint, quem duabus pentimemeris constare voluerint, quarum prior dactylum sive spondeum licenter in utraque regione recipit, posterior solum dactylum in utraque.²⁰⁶

[Some prosodists claim that verses of this metre should be scanned this way - they teach that they have five complete feet: a spondee or a dactyl in the first and second foot, always a spondee in the third foot, and an anapaest in the fourth and fifth foot, as though you should pronounce the verse

Quaerite regna poli, quaerite regna poli

(Seek the kingdom of Heaven, seek the kingdom of Heaven),

quaerite (dactyl), regnapo (dactyl), liquae (spondee), ritere (anapest), gnapoli (anapest). This seems less suitable for the scheme of the metre, if I am not mistaken, since all who have used it have divided the whole line in the middle and have

intended it to consist of two two-and-a-half-foot segments, the first of which takes the dactyl or the spondee freely in either full foot, and the second, the dactyl exclusively in both full feet.]²⁰⁷

Bede shows a firm sense of pedagogics: he has opted for the most lucid means of explaining the structure of the pentameter. As in his later chapters on the structure of the lyric metres, he has jettisoned the excess baggage of idle theoretical speculation and simultaneously

demonstrated the simplest building blocks of the metre.

204 This cumbersome analysis of the dactylic pentameter is given by Marius Victorinus (gramm. VI, 109, 29 – 110, 8).

205 Bede is, of course, not the first author to resort to this device; it occurs already in Terentianus Maurus (“Desine Maenalios / desine Maenalios” – Ter. Maur. 1730) and is virtually ubiquitous in Late Latin grammarians.

206 DAM 10, 26-37.

207 Trans. Kendall 1991, 99.

Bede also briefly discusses the origins of the hexameter and the elegiac couplet, as well as the etymology of their names. This part of his presentation cannot be considered particularly original, as it is borrowed almost verbatim from Isidore. Bede describes the origin of the hexameter as follows. “Hoc metrum post Homerum heroicum nomen accepit, Pithium antea dictum, eo quod Apollinis oracula illo sint metro edita.”²⁰⁸ (“This metre received the name of ‘heroic verse’ after Homer’s time, having previously been called

‘Pythian’, because the oracles of Apollo were uttered in it.”)²⁰⁹ The etymology of the word

‘elegiac’ comes from the same source: “Hoc autem et superius metrum ubi iuncta fuerint, elegiacum carmen vocatur. Elegios namque miseros appellant philosophi, et huius modulatio carminis miserorum querimoniae congruit, ubi prior versus exameter, sequens est

pentameter.”²¹⁰ (“When the pentameter is joined with the hexameter, the verse is called

‘elegiac’. For scholars speak of elegiac poetry as sad, and the modulation of this verse, where the first line is a hexameter and the next a pentameter, is suited to the lamentations of the miserable.”)²¹¹ Bede, however, departs from this traditional material with a brief excursus into what he and his contemporaries considered the biblical use of the hexameter and the elegiac metre:

Quo genere metri ferunt canticum Deuteronomii apud Hebreos, sed et psalmos CXVII et CXLIII esse scriptos. Namque librum beati Iob simplici exametro scriptum esse asseverant.²¹²

[It is said that the song of Moses in Deuteronomy (Deut. 32) and Psalms 118 and 144 were written in this metre in Hebrew, while the book of the blessed Job was written in plain hexameters.]²¹³

Bede has drawn this presentation from Cassiodorus’s and Jerome’s commentaries,²¹⁴ which constitute the most influential attempts to impute a biblical origin on poetic metres. By Bede’s time, their assertions were no longer really questioned, and it is no wonder that Bede takes the questions of prosody in hexameter verse so seriously. Far from viewing the dactylic metres as pagan metres that had been adopted by Christian writers, he saw them as essentially Judeo-Christian, although for a period of time they had also been in the used by Greek and

208 DAM 10, 18-19.

209 Trans. Kendall 1991, 97.

210 DAM 10, 37-41.

211 Trans. Kendall 1991, 99.

212 DAM 10, 41-44..

213 Trans. Kendall 1991, 99.

214 Cassiod. in psalm. 118, 23-26; Hier. praef. Vulg. Iob.

Roman pagans. This, apparently, is the real starting point of all his observations on metre and poetic diction.