I found this most interesting, Victoria. Thank you. For many of my generation, the rhythms and phrasing of the English Hymnal are indelibly internalised. Watts, Herbert and Blake, in particular, have stuck, though their names and their influences were of no interest to us when we sang them and unconsciously committed them to memory.
Thank you Helen. Indelible is the right word! That's probably why one ends up using them as lullabies for wakeful babies and small children -- when you are at your most exhausted, it's the deepest rooted stuff that comes to the surface I find.
Very interesting discussion. I only have a little Latin, and no Hebrew, so the linguistic aspects here are very enlightening.
I'm a big fan of Watts, though I was not very familiar with his version of Psalm 23 that you've quoted here. I am familiar with Herbert's version, and those first stanzas are so similar it seems almost certain that Watts was influenced by Herbert. Comparing just now, there are several similar phrases in subsequent stanzas also, even using some of the same rhymes in the same places).
As I'm sure you know, Watts in his Psalms of David typically provided two versions of each psalm in different hymn meters, but for the 23rd he has 3 versions: Long, Short, and Common Meter. You've quoted the short one, but I am most familiar with the common meter version ("My Shepherd Will Supply My Need"), which is one of my all-time favorite hymns. It's not commonly sung in my experience, but it has a really nice pairing with a 19th century American shape note tune (RESIGNATION): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_hAhyzhfU
Thank you Steven! Yes Watts is certainly imitating Herbert intentionally here, Herbert’s psalm was quite widely sung I believe, and Watts certainly knew The Temple as a whole. I should say that my own Hebrew is very much lower-intermediate, but that has made me appreciate just how excellent the available early modern resources were.
Brilliant article! Just one question, and I'm asking that as someone largely unaware of Latin prosody. But the metre that you've described, clearly doesn't seem to be dimetre. The lines all have have 7 syllable, by and large, and it appears to be trochaic tetrametre catalechtic. Thank you!
Thanks for your comment and your sensible question. The short answer is that the way in which originally classical metrical terms (dimeter, trimeter etc) are used by those writing about English poetry represents rather a simplification of how they are used in Latin. In Latin, most trochaic and iambic metres have as their basic pattern four syllables to a metron (i.e. each metron is composed of two pairs of syllables, or two 'feet'): so a dimeter (before any substitutions etc) would have eight, a trimeter twelve and so on. When people write about English metre using these terms, they generally collapse the metron/foot distinction, so if you were writing about English metre than, as you say, a dimeter would have a baseline of four syllables, a trimeter six and so on. I personally don't think it is very helpful to use these terms for English verse anyway, as I don't think they are descriptively that useful a lot of the time, but obviously they are widely used. It is an additional complication that the same terms are used differently when describing English as opposed to Latin or Greek metre.
Thank you for another fascinating post, opening up translinguistic explorations in Latin and Hebrew - intriguing on how far gendered implications might have been recognized.
Thank you very much for this - gem after gem in different dimensions kept arriving as i read.
I have just tried to find a copy of Beza's psalm 23 online as the extract you gave was lovely - if you have any quiet moments in your life and were willing to fill one of them with sending me a link, that would be very much appreciated!
Thanks for commenting David. There's no modern edition of Beza's psalms so it's probably not anywhere on line but I can send you an image of the original edition. I'll do that now.
I found this most interesting, Victoria. Thank you. For many of my generation, the rhythms and phrasing of the English Hymnal are indelibly internalised. Watts, Herbert and Blake, in particular, have stuck, though their names and their influences were of no interest to us when we sang them and unconsciously committed them to memory.
Thank you Helen. Indelible is the right word! That's probably why one ends up using them as lullabies for wakeful babies and small children -- when you are at your most exhausted, it's the deepest rooted stuff that comes to the surface I find.
Very interesting discussion. I only have a little Latin, and no Hebrew, so the linguistic aspects here are very enlightening.
I'm a big fan of Watts, though I was not very familiar with his version of Psalm 23 that you've quoted here. I am familiar with Herbert's version, and those first stanzas are so similar it seems almost certain that Watts was influenced by Herbert. Comparing just now, there are several similar phrases in subsequent stanzas also, even using some of the same rhymes in the same places).
As I'm sure you know, Watts in his Psalms of David typically provided two versions of each psalm in different hymn meters, but for the 23rd he has 3 versions: Long, Short, and Common Meter. You've quoted the short one, but I am most familiar with the common meter version ("My Shepherd Will Supply My Need"), which is one of my all-time favorite hymns. It's not commonly sung in my experience, but it has a really nice pairing with a 19th century American shape note tune (RESIGNATION): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_hAhyzhfU
Thank you Steven! Yes Watts is certainly imitating Herbert intentionally here, Herbert’s psalm was quite widely sung I believe, and Watts certainly knew The Temple as a whole. I should say that my own Hebrew is very much lower-intermediate, but that has made me appreciate just how excellent the available early modern resources were.
Brilliant article! Just one question, and I'm asking that as someone largely unaware of Latin prosody. But the metre that you've described, clearly doesn't seem to be dimetre. The lines all have have 7 syllable, by and large, and it appears to be trochaic tetrametre catalechtic. Thank you!
Thanks for your comment and your sensible question. The short answer is that the way in which originally classical metrical terms (dimeter, trimeter etc) are used by those writing about English poetry represents rather a simplification of how they are used in Latin. In Latin, most trochaic and iambic metres have as their basic pattern four syllables to a metron (i.e. each metron is composed of two pairs of syllables, or two 'feet'): so a dimeter (before any substitutions etc) would have eight, a trimeter twelve and so on. When people write about English metre using these terms, they generally collapse the metron/foot distinction, so if you were writing about English metre than, as you say, a dimeter would have a baseline of four syllables, a trimeter six and so on. I personally don't think it is very helpful to use these terms for English verse anyway, as I don't think they are descriptively that useful a lot of the time, but obviously they are widely used. It is an additional complication that the same terms are used differently when describing English as opposed to Latin or Greek metre.
Okay, I didn't know that. Thank you very much!
Thank you for another fascinating post, opening up translinguistic explorations in Latin and Hebrew - intriguing on how far gendered implications might have been recognized.
my favorite is Richard Crashaw:
Happy me! O happy sheep!
Whom my God vouchsafes to keep;
Thank you very much for this - gem after gem in different dimensions kept arriving as i read.
I have just tried to find a copy of Beza's psalm 23 online as the extract you gave was lovely - if you have any quiet moments in your life and were willing to fill one of them with sending me a link, that would be very much appreciated!
Thanks for commenting David. There's no modern edition of Beza's psalms so it's probably not anywhere on line but I can send you an image of the original edition. I'll do that now.