oratory and song. In light of this it will no longer appear strange that the Bible should not contain verse epics like those of other nations: its stories are simply attracted to the prose form of the history they are used to illustrate. We shall have to see how the proverb couplet is a meeting point for a Wisdom literature in verse and prose, the respective forms of which exactly correspond each to each. In Ecclesiastes we shall see how a theory can be stated in the form of a sonnet, and discussed in philosophic prose; how again a prose exhortation can find a climax in the most poetic of sonnets. For what affects the two styles we call verse and prose will also react upon the varied forms of poetry and prose with which those styles are usually allied: hence it need not be surprising that in Job, as we have already seen, all the six main forms of literature are illustrated within a single book; in the prophetic rhapsody, as we are to see later, all six can be fused together into one. Other languages may surpass Hebrew as vehicles for precision of thought. But the harmonisation of recitative and rhythm, on the common ground of high parallelism, has provided for the Bible the most elastic medium of expression which the world's literatures contain. CHAPTER V THE BIBLICAL ODE THE Ode cannot be exactly defined. Etymologically the word is equivalent to 'song'; usage seems to have given it the sense of song par excellence: the lyric poetry that is furthest The Ode removed from the ordinary speech, and nearest to pure music. If 'flight' be the regular image for the movement of lyric poetry, then the Ode is the song that can soar highest and remain longest on the wing. Speaking generally, we may say that it is distinguished from other lyrics by greater elaboration, and (so to speak) structural consciousness. Such a literary form will be discussed best by particular examples, and a commentary the Odes of the Bible will introduce us to lyric modes of movement in general. upon Deborah's Song It is natural to commence with Deborah's Song. This is the most elaborate of Biblical odes, and it exercised considerable influence upon succeeding poetry. There is another circumstance which makes it particularly Judges v valuable to the literary student. It is a narrative poem, and the story it narrates is in the previous chapter of Fudges given in the form of history. A careful comparison of the fourth and fifth chapters of that book will enable us to study the differences between lyric narrative and narrative as it appears in history. Few portions of the Old Testament are more familiar, or more frequently discussed, than the incidents that enter into Deborah's Song. Yet I think there are important elements in the story |