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Antique Prose-Rhythm Handbook of Antique Prose - Rhythm. By A. W. de Groot. Pp. 1–228. Groningen, 1918. De numero oratorio Latino. Pp. 1–52. Groningen, 1919.

Albert C. Clark

The Classical Review / Volume 34 / Issue 1-2 / February 1920, pp 42 - 45 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00013366, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00013366

How to cite this article: Albert C. Clark (1920). The Classical Review, 34, pp 42-45 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00013366

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ANTIQUE PROSE-RHYTHM. Handbook of Antique Prose - Rhythm. repeated.1 I venture to recognise in By A. W. DE GROOT. Pp. 1-228. de Groot another ' heretic/ a word Groningen, 1918. De numero oratorio which I use with all respect, and do not Latino. Pp. 1-52. Groningen, 1919. regard as a slur. De Groot's theory is founded upon THE Handbook consists of nine some remarks made by the late A. lectures (in English) upon Prose- Thumb, in the fourth edition of Rhythm as found in ancient authors, Brugmann's Greek Grammar (19T3), chiefly Greek., The subsequent disserta- pp. 666-672. Thumb says of previous tion was written as a thesis for the enquirers, that they have committed an doctorate, and is in Latin. In this error of method in confining themselves review the two works will be quoted as to the rhythm of the clausula without Hb and NL respectively. taking into account the ' immanent * Until recently writers upon prose- rhythm of the languages, as found in rhythm, while differing in many of their those parts of the sentence which are conclusions, have worked more or less supposed to be rhythmical. He refers on the same lines. Their attention has to a paper of Marbe, published in 1904, been mainly directed to the clausula, in which, when discussing the rhythm and their method has been to tabulate of German prose, he takes as his- the forms of this found in various guiding principle the interval between authors, and to label them good and accented and unaccented syllables. bad according to their frequency. It Thumb transferred this principle from was generally agreed that the, cretic was accent to quantity, which in Greek or the chief ingredient in the rhythm of Latin replaces accent. His method the clausula, and that this was followed was to take a hundred syllables of by a trochaic cadence. According to Demosthenes, Plato, or Xenophon, and Zielinski, there are three favourite forms, to tabulate the percentages of cases in viz. which one to six shorts are found 0 — — u (I) between two long vowels. 0 — —1> 0 (2) Thumb has found an enthusiastic 0 — —Aristotle, which he mentions with Latin these three forms become respect {Hb pp. 61-3). The only true increasingly prevalent, and were finally method, he says, is to collect statistic stereotyped in the three forms of the material {ib. p. 101). mediaeval cursus (planus, tardus, velox). This may be termed the ' orthodox' Thumb's complaint that writers had method, a term which is not intended neglected to enquire into the 'im- to claim any sanctity for it, but merely manent ' rhythm of the language has lost to show that it has been generally much of its force since the appearance adopted. A 'heretical' view has of Zielinski's work on the durchgehende Rhythmus or ' constructive ' Rhythm, as recently been put forward by Zander, 2 who holds that the essence of prose- he calls it, in 1914. In this Zielinski rhythm is to be found in iteratio and 1 Cf. C.R. 1916, pp. 53-5. that any rhythm is good, if it is 2 Cf. C.R. 1916, pp. 22-6. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 43 investigates the rhythm of the /f De Groot follows throughout the and the icafkov and compares it with the plan suggested by Thumb. He rhythm of the final clausula, his con- considers the clausula in relation to clusion being that the smaller divisions non-metrical parts of the sentence in exhibit a similar rhythm, but in a the same author, also to writings of diluted form. He compares the final other authors who did not use metre. clausula to ' cream,' the clausula of the He says that ' better metre is not the colon to ' the milk of commerce,' and " best" clausula, i.e. neither the most that of the comma to ' skimmed milk.' frequent form at the end of the sen- We may continue the simile by likening tence, nor the form which is most the residue to milk which has been not favoured at the end of the sentence, as only skimmed but watered. It is strange compared with the metre of tlje whole that de Groot nowhere alludes to this sentence. On the contrary, it is the work, and more than once asserts that form the frequency of which most no one has applied the comparative deviates from non-metrical prose' (Hb method to the body of the sentence p. 145). Elsewhere, he distinguishes and its relation to the final clausula. between negative and positive clausulae. His silence might be thought due to The first are those which do not contempt for Zielinski's methods, but increase in frequency at the end of the this would not account for the omission sentence, and the second are those that of the book in the copious bibliography, do. He expresses the distinction by which includes Zielinski's other contri- the use of a plus sign for a positive form butions to the study of the subject. and a minus sign for a negative. Thus, It is difficult to suppose that he has not where the figures for the body of the seen Zielinski's work, in view of some sentence and the end are respectively terminological similarities, e.g. the use 90 and ii"2, the form has the quotient of ' quotients' for ' positive' and (+), while where they are 4*1 and 4, it ' negative' clausulae (Hb pp. 34, 64, cf. has the quotient (—). If the relation Ziel. p. 13). It is, therefore, very odd between them is 1 to 2, e.g. 4 and 8, the that he has not made any direct quotient is 2 (+). Under their system reference to it.1 a form which occurs but rarely in the De Groot describes his own method final clausula may receive a higher thus (Hb p. 18): 'I investigated each place than one which occurs frequently. combination of a fixed number of In order to illustrate de Groot's syllables, e.g. 6, 7 or 8' (i.e. in passages methods, we may take the simplest from various authors consisting of possible case, viz. Zielinski's Form I. 1000 syllables each). 'On practical (-0—G). AccordingtoZielinski's tables, grounds I took seven and added—the this clausula occurs 4184 times in reason why will be exhibited later on— Cicero's speeches, its percentage being an eighth, the quantity of which was 23'3 of the total. Any reader who once has left out of account. We thus get his attention called to the form cannot 27=i28 possible series. There are e.g. fail to note its omnipresence, especially 7 short, 6 short and 1 long, 5 short and in what Zielinski calls the 7 type, i.e. 2 long syllables, etc' Unfortunately, when there is a caesura after the second he does not give a reference to the place syllable, e.g. mortt victstis. De Groot ' later on' where the reason is exhibited, (N.L. p. 14) allows that Cicero preferred and I did not succeed in detecting it. 1 y to other forms of 1, but on p. 5 the Also, he frequently discusses other only instance which he gives of this combinations, e.g. of 4 or 5 syllables (ib. clausula is 1 /S, which is rare in Cicero pp. 37,52, 61, etc.), thereby puzzling the and was avoided by later writers. On reader. The 128 possible forms are p. 8 he assigns to it a quotient value of given pp. 178 ff., but it needs careful i*6 (i.e. its occurrence at the end of the search to identify a particular form in . sentence as compared with its occur- the multitude. rence elsewhere is as r6 to 1). It is

1 thus a weak positive form, and ties with Since this was in print Professor Sonnen- another at the foot of a list of eleven schein has pointed out to me a solitary reference, N.L. p. 30 n. forms. On the other hand, the first 44 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW place is given to the sequence - u u - o - o, are very surprising. He tells us (p. 111) which has the quotient 3"i. This form that Demosthenes has only one favou- would seem to correspond to Zielinski's rite form, viz. the double trochee. To iii.8, i.e. —GO |-u|-u, which according this (p. 34) he assigns the remarkable to his statistics (Clauselgesetz, p. 105) quotient + +, on the ground that occurs 243 times only in the speeches. its frequency at the end of the sen- According to de Groot, however, it is tence as compared with its frequency Cicero's favourite form. On p. 31 he in the sentence is as 18*9 to 12*4. says that it is numerosior atque iucundior On the other hand, the double than -o—0, and adds that the esse •spondee, which is very nearly as fre- videdtur clausula ( = Zielinski's i2) is quent at the end of the sentence (187), numerosior than - u — u and the double is given a minus quotient, because it is cretic (Zielinski's 2), qudmvis infrequen- still more frequent elsewhere (19*0). tior. Isocrates (p- 188) is said to have This is a very surprising conclusion, favoured every form with a long penulti- and the average reader must rub his mate! On p. 114 the fourth paeon eyes and suspect that there is some- (uuu-) is said to be the 'typical' thing wrong with a method which Greek clausula, and by way of proof we yields such a strange result. He will are told that' it is specially mentioned probably reflect that the low quotient by Aristotle.' De Groot proceeds to assigned to r is due to Cicero's exces- remark that it was avoided by Demos- sive fondness for this form, which leads thenes, and does not play any part in him to employ it continually throughout the metre of Isocrates. He only quotes the sentence as well as at the end. for its use the later works of Plato, After this simple example of the new especially the Laws. It does not strike method, we may turn to the more him that Aristotle was a pioneer in the difficult problems presented by Greek. science of prose-metre, and that this De Groot takes Thucydides as an ex- early guess may have been unfounded. ample of a non-metrical writer, though De Groot's book is very difficult, he does not deign to notice Cicero's partly because his point of view is hard remark to the same effect (Orator 219). to grasp, but chiefly because his methods He does not, however, express himself of demonstration are not clear. The very clearly on the subject. Thus on chief defect is that he seldom quotes p. 88 he speaks of this view as a passages from ancient authors, and hypothesis, and on p. no speaks of the merely gives figures and percentages metre of Thucydides: he also frequently without showing the reader how he speaks of Thucydides' clausula. A gets them. This tends to create sus- large amount of room is assigned to picion, especially when the statistics Plato, whose rhythm is so elusive that or conclusions seem strange. Also, he it has generally been left alone, as sui does not always define his terms. generis. It is pleasant to be able to Thus, it is by no means clear what he award praise, and I recognise many means by a clausula, whether it is the useful observations in this part of the end of a sentence, or of a colon, or of a Handbook. De Groot shows that there comma. On one occasion (Hb p. 27), is what, Zielinski terms a law of de- where he quotes a passage of Thucy- velopment in Plato, viz. that in his dides, he clearly uses it for the end of a later dialogues he prefers a series of KOfifia or KWXOV, while on others he short syllables. Isocrates, whose prose uses it for the end of the sentence. has always seemed to me more metrical Generally, however, it is uncertain in than that of any Greek writer before what sense he uses the term, as he does the Asiatics, and to anticipate in many not quote passages, but merely gives ways the system of the Latins, is not figures. I notice a similar uncertainty discussed, though tabulations of his . in his attitude towards ' resolution,' clausulae are given (p. 189)., De Groot's i.e. the substitution of two shorts for conclusions about Demosthenes and one long syllable. Thus {Hb p. 57) he Isocrates, whom the ancients regarded recognises that - u ^ - u (= i2) is a bye- as the chief masters of prose-rhythm, form of -U--U ( = 1), and allows that THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 45 the analogy of verse-metre may be to the ordinary reader. Some of his applied with caution to prose (p. 125), tables and curves are to me incom- but elsewhere (p. 95) says it is ' most prehensible. arbitrary' to suppose that two short The distribution of longs and shorts syllables can be substituted for one long throughout the sentence, with which one. Further, his style is discursive, Thumb was concerned, seems to be an and he makes obscure statements, interesting subject, and it is possible which would be much clearer, if. he that valuable results may be arrived at, gave at once information which occurs especially in connection with the de- later on. Sometimes he appears to velopment of a particular writer's style. contradict himself. Thus {Hb pp. 74-5), Zielinski, before Thumb, had already when discussing the use of hiatus in formulated his Law of Equipoise Plato's prose, he says: ' The number of (Clauselgesetz, p. 31), which tends to hiatus in Plato's former works varies produce a balance between the long and between 0*44 and 5*85 a page. In the short syllables in a sentence. This later works this frequency varies be- seems to explain many of the pheno- sween 31*18 and 45*87.' The natural mena noticed by Thumb and de Groot. meaning of this sentence, at any rate in I cannot, however, agree that students English, is that hiatus is more frequent of metrical prose should start with the in the later than in the earlier dialogues. V\T) of the sentence. To quote again This, however, is contrary to de Groot's Zielinski's simile, we should begin with, whole argument, which is that in the the cream, not with the milk and water. later dialogues hiatus was avoided. The meaning here, therefore, is very ALBERT C. CLARK. dark. Frequently, mathematicalformulae Corpus Christi College, are employed which are unintelligible Oxford.

SHORT NOTICES Spirit, Soul, and Flesh. (Historical and magical and kindred texts, and the last Linguistic Studies in Literature re- with the New Testament. lated to the New Testament. Second In the classical period there is no Series, Vol. III.).' By ERNEST DE antithesis of irvev/jLa and vv/jU06eppov Christian period, the fifth with Jewish- and used irpev/M rather in the sense of Christian documents, the sixth with Aristotle's day. Sextus Empiricus was