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    Slavonic Folk Verse

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf
    55 views14 pages

    1996 Gasparov Slavonic Folk Syllabic & Tonic Verse

    Uploaded by

    Yaroslav Gorbachov
    Slavonic Folk Verse

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 14
    A HISTORY OF Cen EUROPEAN VERSIFICATION M.L. GASPAROV AND MARINA TA EDITED BY G. 8. SMITH LEOFRANC HOLFORD-STREVENS. CLARENDON PRESS - OXFORD 1996 to INTRODUCTION European legacy in the various languages and groups of languages. We shall deal first with the languages i the original syllabic ‘was either retained or went over to a \d Germanic langu: al syllabic systern we cdieval Greck and Latin, and in the Romance languages developed from the latter; and finally we shall deal with the way manic syllabo-tonic verse arose at the juncture of Romance syllabic verse and Germanic tonic verse and gradually spread over the whole of Europe. 2 Slavonic and Baltic Folk Syllabic and Tonic Verse 4. Baltic (Lithuanian and Latvian) Folk Sllabic Verse tc Languages, Latvian and Lithuanian, the syllabie struc- ture of Common Indo-European verse has been preserved with what is probably the greatest degree of clarity. True, the long measure with its epic genres did not manage to survive in Baltic folklore. Only t measure was preserved, initially the 4-+4-syllable line; this occurs in the lyric daina songs, which are mainly in quatre of the two languages, however, it was subjected to certa explicable deformations. In Latvian folk versfication the basic measut divided by a caesura as follows. Firstly, in the language the final short 12, SLAVONIG AND BALTIC the word; because of this, the rhythm of the syllabo-tonic trochee developed in the hemistichs. As a matter of fact, in the tetrasyllabic hemistich, word combinations of 4+0 and a+2 syllables sound trochaic anyway, the combination 3+1 is impossible (because of zeugma), while the combination 143, coming under the influence ificially shifts the stress of trisyllabic words from the initial syllable to the middle (both in singing and in reading). In this way, the basic Latvian folk measure sounds like ‘uogas / pal Tevs parusa / medi 3s / will bring honey, ‘And your murnmy / will beng ersies -xasyllabic one that ic rhythm; zeugma, the quantitative ending, and the possibility for truncated hemistichs to appear and be expanded are the same as in the oct scheme for the structure of the hemistich is XX. This sources. One was the octosyllable with truncated hemistichs, in which the trisyllabic pattern began to be sensed as the norm rather than the exception, and as a sign of that, the quantitative ending ged from long to short. The other source was perhaps the long epic (6+6)-syllab content, but as a re | FOLK SYLLABIC AND TONIC VERSE 13 more frequently exceeds the four-line limit than does the trochaic. Alongside the octosyllabic trochaic measure, the hexasyllabic dactylic measure is felt to be ‘supershort’, closely connected with song, dance, and improvisation. An example: Maidens, maidens, Guard well the sheep-flock: In Lithuanian folk versification the original syllabic system has bbeen preserved in a purer form. Here, the basic measure may also be considered to be the octosyllabic line, also having two tetrasyllabic hemistichs and also with zeugma before the last syllable of each. The quantitative ending (of the line and the hemistich) is preserved here ndency; the penultimate syllable is usually long, the last usually short. Since in Lithuanian there is a conne between length and stress, the penultimate syllable is usually also stressed; on average three-quarters ofthe lines and hemistchs have a gives rise to a tendency towards ichs have +2 syllable of the language’s natu does not deform the pronunciation of hemistichs that have a different arrangement, as is the case in Latvian. The disposition of longs and stresses within the line is free, and therefore the verse remains fundamentally syllabic. Here is an example of the octo- syllabic Lithuanian folk song in distichs: Siufité mane / motinéle Ijurelés / vandenalio. 2alio vario / naitiokdliais, Baltds iepos / viedrui@lias ‘Min basemiant / vandenéli, Teatleke / gulbindlis, Iraleke / Irsidrumste / vandene“ Mother told me, / mother told me, Go down to sea / to get water. "A sriowy swan / fying at me, 14 SLAVONIC AND BALTIC When snowy swan / set off lying Icchurned the sea, / churned the water. Since with the loss ofthe long measure the octosyllable apparently took over its function inthe system of verification, the ‘supershort 1 in Celtic, § 11) In exactly the same way, they have a pre- ine ending, and in exactly the same way they were usually used separately, being mixed, in Lithuanian lines of different measures combine readily. In doing so, measures differing by one syllable combine more rarely than those that differ by two syllable and six-syllable lines, seven- and, five-syllable needs to be this way for the lines of different length to contrast markedly rather than being confused, concern—that ‘even-number (Later we shall see that this i ‘even-number’ lines, and ‘odd-number’ combine other languages too; § 39.) Here is an example of one of the most widely used combinations of heterosyilabic measures, a stanza of 5+5+7 syllables: Sailing on, sailing Little boat yellow Across the boundless ocean. Hey, skipper, skipper, Antjaraziy maréliy, Vai, Sipor, 8ipor, Jauns tpordi, Lipkij mast Tea tu matysi I the lesser part of the nd its derivatives. Much richer FOLK SYLLABIC AND TONIC VERSE 15 5 Common Slaconic and South Slavonic Sylabic Verse The verse of Slavonic folk poetry divides into sung (predominantly Iyric), recited (predominantly epic), and spoken (limited to a few the melody predominates over the verbal though some doubt is possible in the case of the forms of spoken verse, of which more below, § 8). We shall dwe above all on the rhythm of recited verse, which is clearer and easier to reconstruct. Common Slavonic verse, according to the way it has been recon- structed following the shared and similar clements in modern Slavonic folk verse, had the following features. From Common Indo- European verse syllable and dodecasylat y s in them, but developed the system of caesuras in greater de In particular, the caesura became the feature that distinguished lyric verse from epic. In lyric verse a symmetrical caesura was used that divided the line into equal parts: the octosyllable into 4+4, the decasyllable into 5+5, the dodecasyllable into 6+ sures, dividing the parts: the octosyllable into 5+3, the decasyllable into 4+6; apparently, no asymmetrical dodecasyllable was used. The ending in each hemistich was underpinned by zeugma: the hemistich and the line could not end with a monosyl ‘These Common Slavonic measures developed in different ways in the folk versification of the various Slavonic peoples. They have been, best preserved in the South Slavonic languages: dccasyllable more in Serbian, the 5+3 epic octo Bulgarian, In Serbian the distineti bles has been preserved, an¢ the seventh and eighth, it is Tength has been lost, and so has the 2 guages, though, a tendency towards tonicization, the regulated disposition of stresses, has begun to make 16 SLAVONIC AND mALTIC the Serbian decasyllable or deseerac the stresses rhythm (stresses fall on the odd-numbered syllables three times as often as on the even-numbered syllables), and the Bulgarian octosyllable they tend to form an iambic rhythm dominates). We shall discuss tendency towards ordering the Russian ear, brought up on ceptible; on the contrary, stresses, something characteristic of syllabic verse. Here is an example of the Serbian ten-syllable line. Long syllables are marked ’ if they have rising intonation, ” if they have falling intonation, ~ if they are unstressed; short stressed syllables are marked * if they have rising intonation, * if falling: pax rpaswne / xpi 6pra phen, JB rps Opa / xpi Miinbuennna: Sean 6jéme / Bykiaane xpiny, TIpro Gjéue / Fraeura sbjsosa, ‘Tyehe 6jeme / Mpusnseonh Féjro. [pax rpauunn / Crdaap sa Bajasn. pax rpauune / xpi re xdna - hee was / warrior-chief Uglyes the third was / Mmyavchevi! they the town / Skadar on Boyana, x the town / three years, all of days fll lable 5+3 line, Next comes an example of the Bulgarian eigh from the song Lazar and Pethana: Hati-roatewms / Gpar Janap, Tolt cu na mama / aysat 8, salt m, amo, / 1, Ue sop aever ome / wit Spars: {Mo eawax na te / sanenem YY Tlerxanuae / na rocts, — Hever am murs / me erane! . FOLK SYLLABIG AND TONIC VERSE 17 And the eldest one / was Lazar, To his mother thus / uttered thet ‘Now, let me, mother, / now, let me,— ‘There are nine of us / us brothers, One by one we'll go, / we will go To Petkan / saGdpasii, / siurro, cfinko? /'y esirose, / afei core! Ba Noepa / ya hénojxy, / nie clio! Aw’ 3a colirexor / crapjtumny — / npuerdja xu! AM y x20 / web h20djxe? / Oj womthy! Quickly your mother you have forgotten, and why, my son? / You went off to the marriage-feast, that wonderful guest! / for the bridegroom's brother with the girl, my charmed son! / And as head of the marriage f you! / But the round dance among the gir? My young lad! (0 Common Slavonic recited verse among the South Slavs, where it has been preserved better than anywhere else. We may note that it was not rhymed, as Common Slavonic recited verse was doubiless also not rhymed. But let us also note that kind of consonance appears: is alliteration, the repetition of initial consonants ; u svatove, divni svat encounter this means material In the other two groups of Slavonic languages the fate of the Common Slavonic epic measures tenth to thirteenth centuries the ‘fall of the jers’ came abs Slavonic languages—the reduction and disappearance of short vowels in certain positions—and correspondingly along with them the loss of syllables. Verse texts that had been isosyllabic before the fall of the ers became anisosyllabic after it, and the sense of me: 18 SLAVONIC AND BALTIC. Slavonic sd to carry the tradition of isosyllabic measures through of the jers. In the western languages, Czech and Polish, the epic measures (and with them the epic genres of the bina type) degenerated and ceased to exist. But in the East Slavonic languages, Russian and Ukrainian, they were regenerated from pure syllabic into pure tonic measures 6. East Slavonic Recitative Tonic Verse (Old Russian) and then in Russian the Common wing way. There were were was phonemic stress tial syllable of the word, as , but free and phonemic, ‘one not bound either to the or to the penultimate, as in P as in Bulgarian. Therefore, first of all, in this case the quant the absence of long and short vow but instead was replaced by a tonic ending, so that the last strong position, where in Common Slavonic and Serbian verse there was a long, began to be have a stronger was lengthened from one to i¢ second arbitrary), and the quantitative feminine ending was transformed into a tonic dactylic ive ending, given sew eT] becomes... XII Dactylic endings (often with a hypermetrical stress on th ble) became a characteristic feature of Russia endings are sometimes encountered in it as w and religious verse), but much more rarely. Secondly, the trochaic rhythm of the stresses, which had only been a weak presence in Serbian verse, developed much more strongly and clearly in Russian. This is especially noticeable in laments, und like a correct syllabo- ; and the dodecasyllable like a trochaic in the presence of such a well-defined internal rhythm it became so much easier for the ear to grasp the commensurability of the lines that there was no longer any need for a caesura to divide the FOLK SYLLABIC AND TONIC VERSE 19 line into hemistichs: in the lyric decasyllable (545) the caesura is pic folk verse it disappeared, never Herc is an example of the Russian lament (by Fedosova, a poem of mourning composed on behalf of a widow), where the measure is analogous to that of the Serbian lament cited above (444+4); but the Serbian the pos as was regulated s the other way in the following extract, only the fixed stresses are SL nyreM say umpoKoel xopoxeuLKolt He pyuell 1a Gexorr Guicrpa ava pirvensxa, S70 a, Gea, ene OMT go along the road » ‘To the roadside to the grave spaced away, ron the contrary, compared with pure syllabic verse it has any become clearer and more strict. But this remained the case only in the lament, a ness demanded a very monotonous ‘melodic contour. In the epic genres, on the other hand, this syllabo- tonic rhythm immediately began to break down into a purely tonic one; the melody here was fairly impoverished and could not counter ion of the strong stress with a point, and t interval with a numeral indicating the number of syllables ‘otation, we may demo} tonic rhythm comes abou 20 SLAVONIG AND BALTIC ic decasyllable xx xx | XK x =x xe fe fuxw ox Lhe fee ee x He oy Exe Ox xe fUx) Xe Ux. In the laments, the original Common Slavonic measures were symmet ¢ octosyllable 44, the dodecasyllable 4+4+4- They therefore fitted into the developing trochaic rhythm without any difficulty: in each group of four syllables a strong stress became fixed the firs, s0 that strong stresses (’) “por ecet das roaring te the fundamental Common Slavonic measure was asymmetrical with unequal parts: the decasyllable 4+6. When it became trochaic, it tumed into a trochaic pentameter with dactylic ending: Kax po erombiox ropoze no Kwese, Ay enanaa kaso Bozoawnepa . (Once in Kiev city, in the Act the prince's, famous Volodiimir’s court. . We can hear that there is no such regular alternation of weak and the third), producing the rhythm ‘.1.3.. This inequity in the intervals was felt to be rhythmically awkward; therefore, the epic line tries to expand the first interval to the same extent as the second. To begin Kax 20 crombiiom no ropore no Kwene, Avy aackona Kista Booamaepa ‘man, princely Volodimir’s court . ble and instead Later, the first interval cored, but what * the rhythm becomes ‘3.3." the troch was a pentameter is now a hexameter: Kax no eroabsiox sia no ropoae wo Kwese, Avy aackora y Kissa Boxoamstepa the first interval is expanded by one syllable, and instead of the. FOLK SYLLABIG AND TONIC VERSE 21 ‘Once in Kiev, in that city, in the capital At the gentle man, the princely Volodimie’s And all these rhythmical forms—the original trochaic pentameter, mediate non-trochee, and the eventual trochaic hexameter ing and interchangeable. Obviously, in this process there is nothing het of syllabic verse, once the line could be either one or two syllables longer, or of syllabo-tonic verse, once non-trochaic lines could exist side by side with the trochaic lines. We now have a tonic measure with three sin the line and with changeable unstressed intervals between them whose number can vary from one to three. In modern Russian metrics this line is normally calle (according to , strong places also sometimes termed ‘three-ictus. strict accentual verse’ genres. Apart from the sequences of one-, tw: tervals that have been enumerated, 3;', which sounds like a trochaic and three-syllable rs began to arise Kax no ropoxe no Kutes ‘Once in Kiev, in the ¢ also *.2.2., which sounds like an anapaestic trimeter: Kax so ropoge 6x0 po Kuene (Once in Kiev, ‘twas there in the capital “3.2, which does not sound syllabo-tonic: Kar no ropone 1m 6ut30 no Kueve ... the city, the capit ‘.q/’ and “2.11”, which yield a dotnit; here, the decayed epic line takes on rhythmical variations of the symmetrical lyric 55, line Once in Kiev, Kax po ropose aa no Kuene, la y aacona xuss-Baaawupa Once in Acthe weles In all, nine rhytl Jaktovik; apart from that, opening of the line can be truncated: instead of ‘Kak vo stol'nom. 22 SLAVONIC AND BALTIC (Once in Kiev . ..}, we may find ‘Vo stol'nom .. (In Kiev...) and even ‘V stol'nom . . ” (Kiev...) Tt was not easy for the singers to th a thythm as complex as this; the earliest Russian folk- ‘writing down the bylin, noticed that different singers sang some of them tried to use all the ‘aktosik variations xm did not yet exist in metrics, but the fact itself was noticed) nake things easier, tried to make the measure more strc close to a syllabo-tonic trochee; yet others did opposite and disturbed the rhythm even more, bringin to completely formless ton: vere. OF the Id trip of 1871, a g Alesha, in disguise at the wedding of his wife: where Dobrynya arrives Tonopua-ne JloGpsitis TaKové cxon0: 23 Tocynapuinx wos Tat poawa watyurxa! 33. Za nme nonaii-xo, mate, nxaTke cKoMopomKoe, 2:3. ‘a sme nogaii-xo, ware, rye xpyeraabuin, ——$.1 Hla nonail, war 23, Hla nomen-2e Tobparas Bo rowectsoi np, 23 Ta cannes HoBpatia xa ynewy, 23 Havax vo rycam nanrpusams ... 2.2 And he uttered, Dobrynya, this is utterance: ‘O my sovereign, my mothes Give me, mother Give me, mother 'smade for travelling.” ya, to the revelry, brynya, by the fireside, crument Ms roro ax to 1 roposa sts Mypowat, 16 Hs toro cena aa c Kapaumposa Ts Buesmas yaaemsxui nopomuit goOpusl Mosomeu, 1 FOLK SYLLABIC AND TONIC VERSE 23 On croa zayrpeny 20 Myposan, TS Ali x o6eqenKe noeners xorea of # croanunil Kuen rpaz, T7 la fi noawexaa om Ko eaapuowy Ko ropoay x Yepwnrosy, TS Y toro a ropoxa Yepuurona T5, Harwano-ro enaymkn aepunim-uepio, TS ‘Alt depmnant-uepuo, Kak epia Bopoua 15 And from out of there, from out that town, from Murom-town, Forth from out of Karachirov settlement, Forth he rode, a mettesome, full-bodied, stalwart warrior, ‘And he was at morning-time in Murom-town, But by mid-day time he wanted to arrive in Kiew-town, ‘And he did approach the town of great repute that’s called Chernigov- Abas black as night, as black as raven-bird ... Here, almost all the lines are trochees of various lengths: a reverse twochaizing process seems to be taking place, whereby the taktoik of the bylina developed from the trochaic pentameter and now seems to ing back into free trochees. One unique example of a trochaic bylina has been preserved in which the singer iol performed by Krivopolenova, Var ‘Vavilo and the Jesters’, a very late example, but which nevertheless probably reflects a memory of the original syllabic structure of the decasyllabic byline line (trochaic pentameters make up three-quarters of all th Tosopizo-r0 a6 Banwao: I weap mecent ners sa He YMerD, SL ryaoK urpars na He ropaaei>. Tonopna Kyzuaa a co JleMbaton: «

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