Behold, I waited for your words,

I listened for your reasons,
Whilst ye searched out what to say;

Yea, I attended unto you:

And, behold, there was none that convinced Job,
Or that answered his words, among you.

Beware lest ye say, 'We have found wisdom;

God may vanquish him, not man':

For he hath not directed his words against me;
Neither will I answer him with your speeches.
They are amazed, they answer no more:
They have not a word to say.

And shall I wait because they speak not,
Because they stand still, and answer no more?
I also will answer my part,

I also will shew my opinion.

For I am full of words;

The spirit within me constraineth me;

Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent;
Like new bottles which are ready to burst.

I will speak that I may find relief;

I will open my lips and answer.

Let me not, I pray you, respect any man's person;
Neither will I give flattering titles unto any man.
For I know not to give flattering titles;

Else would my Maker soon take me away.
Howbeit, Job, I pray thee, hear my speech,
And hearken to all my words.

Behold now, I have opened my mouth,

My tongue hath spoken in my mouth.

My words shall utter the uprightness of my heart:

And that which my lips know they shall speak sincerely.

The spirit of God hath made me,

And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life.

If thou canst, answer thou me;

Set thy words in order before me, stand forth.
Behold, I am according to thy wish in God's stead.
I also am formed out of the clay :

Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid,

Neither shall my pressure be heavy upon thee

From this point Elihu settles down to his argument, and other rhythmic forms obtain. But later on he is stirred from philosophic calm by the oncoming of the tempest: and in the growing excitement of its advance a similar rhythm of augmenting duplication appears that is even more pronounced, the strophes taking the form 1,3; 1,3; 2,6; 2,6; 4, 12; 4, 12. [See section 44 of the M. R. B. arrangement.]

Pendulum movement

28. I have remarked in the body of this work on the Pendulum form as eminently characteristic of Hebrew thought. In the example cited on pages 58-9 the alternation is between guilty neglect and terrible retribution; here the pendulum form is an elaboration of antistrophic structure, and the formula for the passage would be 5,5; 1,1; 1,1; 4,4. It obtains equally in strophic structure, as illustrated in psalms lxxviii and cvi (pages 145-9), and in the latter part of psalm cvii (page 155). In Job we find a triple pendulum. The Oath of Clearing is a song constructed on three notes: one describes the sins to be disavowed; a second invokes penalties if the speaker has been guilty of these sins; a third is made by a recoil from the very thought of entertaining such sins against God.

If I have walked with vanity,

And my foot hath hasted to deceit;

(Let me be weighed in an even balance,
That God may know mine integrity;)

If my step hath turned out of the way,

And mine heart walked after mine eyes,

And if any spot hath cleaved to mine hands:

Then let me sow and let another eat;

Yea, let the produce of my field be rooted out.

This triple alternation is maintained for more than 80 lines. A triple pendulum characterises again the first part of the Divine Intervention [Job volume, page 137.]

29. Variation obtains where, in a series of sequences otherwise parallel, the dissimilar parallelism is differently distributed.

Variation

Strophe

Withhold not good from them to whom it is due,

When it is in the power of thine hand to do it.

Say not unto thy neighbour,

Go, and come again,

And tomorrow I will give thee,

When thou hast it by thee.

Antistrophe

Devise not evil against thy neighbour,
Seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.
Strive not with a man without cause,

If he have done thee no harm.
Envy thou not the man of violence,
And choose none of his ways.

In this simple example each strophe consists of six lines with the same dissimilar parallelism 4a+2b: but in the first the lines run abaaab, in the second ababaa. Similarly, the stanzas of psalm cxliii (printed above, page 187) are all quatrains, but three different arrangements of the lines are to be traced in the several stanzas, viz. aabb, abab, abba.

Conclusion

30. Two remarks may be made in conclusion. It may be observed that the arrangement of lines in passages here cited, or in the Modern Reader's Bible to which references are made, is very different from that in other editions of the Bible, and the question may be asked, What principle regulates such arrangements? In answer, I would draw attention to the fundamental difference between metrical systems in other languages, resting upon rhyme and syllabic quantity, and the Hebrew parallelism of clauses. The mechanical divisions in the former case approach the rigidity of material things: parallelism belongs to the world of thought, and in the nature of things admits great variability of analysis. Hence, in the systematisation of parallelism there is no right and wrong, but only better and worse; and the test will be the amount of symmetry and beauty that a proposed arrangement brings out. Too little attention has been given to the principle of universal literature by which metre is a reflection of thought. The chief point to grasp is, not that any particular metre has a particular significance (though this may occasionally be true), but that, as a regular thing, metrical changes reflect changes of spirit and thought. I have endeavoured to illustrate this in all parts of the above exposition.1

Again, the question is often raised, where elaborate systematisation is suggested in connection with literature, Are we to understand that the authors really intended this elaborate scheme? The question is caused by a confusion

1 In application to other literatures I have discussed this principle in my Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist (3d ed., pages 349-55), and my Ancient Classical Drama (passim; see Metre in Index).

between the two meanings of the word 'purpose': the conscious 'purpose of an individual who produces, and the 'purpose' served by the thing produced as a part of a scientific scheme. Analytic purpose is not to be assumed on the part of a poet, though of course individual poets may be analytic as well as poetic. All that is assumed, in the matter of metre, is a highly developed sense of rhythmic beauty on the poet's part; this leads him to produce what satisfies his keen sense of form. It is then for analysis to take the intricate product to pieces, and to see in what its intricacy has consisted. The ✓ test of accuracy in such analytic examination is 'system,' that is, the recurrence of the same results in numerous and diverse poetic productions.

APPENDIX IV

A REFERENCE TABLE

TO CONNECT THE PAGING OF THE FIRST AND THE PRESENT EDITIONS

Where sloping figures are used, the correspondence is only approximate