es a eee it ple! Dee : > 1 ial 4 . —-- Nghe ae ee aoe << oo wi te Wa oe ee ae p et. See Oe pees or a OP et yy A D8 oe 4 ae 2S ae 2 ne * ay a pS oe. ne. ae a NS 4u% “a — ° = Tat [Reprinted from THz New Wor p for March, 1893. ] THE FOLK-SONG OF ISRAEL IN THE MOUTH OF THE PROPHETS. Axnout the middle of the eighteenth century the folk-song renewed its honors. The fresh impulse came in part from the awakening of the historical sense, and the learned study of the relics of the literature of the past. But it was much more emphatically due to the spread of the watchword, ‘“ Return to Nature,” which found in Jean Jacques Rousseau an apostle of preéminent inspiration. In Germany, the profoundly thought- ful J. G. Hamann, “the Magus of the North,” stimulated by Rousseau, declared that “poetry is the mother-tongue of man- kind.” 1 This means that poetry is not art, but nature ; that it is the language of the childhood of the nations. Would we find genuine poetry, we must listen to the ingenuous utterances of the life of the great masses of men. Following this inclination of the divining-rod, Johann Gottfried Herder, Hamann’s greater countryman and pupil, sunk his shaft deep into primitive folk- life. In his “Stimmender Volker in Liedern’’ — “ Voices of the Nations in Song” —he brought to light a treasure of the noblest folk-songs from all lands. and climes, which revealed a new world to his contemporaries. Since Herder’s time, this treasure has been immeasurably increased by ever-new discoveries and pub- lications. Yet it is an open question whether all the genuine folk-songs that have been preserved equal in value the poems which were inspired by the rediscovered folk-song. For since Goethe, Herder’s docile pupil, gave the signal, few of our great poets have remained unaffected. Goethe himself, Uhland, Kichendorff, Heine, and many others owe to their conscious and loving connection with folk-song their finest and most affecting strains. 1 [shall be pardoned if I follow here the historical development in Ger- many only. For England, I need only mention the names of Perey, Lowth and Burns to show that the course of events there was quite similar, while its beginnings lie farther back than with us. bo The Folk-Song of Israel. A world-embracing mind like Herder’s could not fail to per- ceive the flowers of genuine poetry in the Old Testament. springing as it did from the people’s very self. In fact, he de- voted to the Old Testament a series of his most brilliant writ- ings, and since Herder’s time we have begun in Germany to do justice to the beauty of the Old Testament. Not all the poetry of the Old Testament, indeed, can be called folk-poetry ; on the contrary, in the course of a literary history extending over many centuries, we observe a development leading up to the most re- fined forms of the poetry of art, and indeed to its perversions also. But that Hebrew poetry originated in folk-song, and that the poets of Israel, 2,500 years before Herder and Goethe, were con- scious of possessing in their folk-song an inexhaustible well of genuine poesy, from which they themselves had to draw to se- eure for their own song the highest effect upon the feelings of the people, — these facts can be proved to-day, with much more certainty and comprehensiveness than a Herder surmised. Well- nigh the entire host of the Old Testament prophets bear witness to this effect. The songs that the people are to sing must move their hearts in joy or sorrow, whether they relate single, deeply impressive events which live on in historical folk-songs and ballads, and often pass through a peculiar metempsychosis, or refer to the loves and sorrows of every-day life, which continually return and resound in ever new songs. In the Orient, the culminating points of joy and sorrow in every human life — marriage and death —are especially the fixed poles around which folk-poesy turns, in the bridal song and the strain of lamentation. The entire quarter of the town, the whole village, or the whole tribe of Bedouins, take part there in these celebrations. The feasts of joy and of mourning last at least seven days, and numberless are the songs sung in praise of the bridegroom and the bride, in eulogy of conjugal love, in honor of the departed one, or to bear witness to the sorrow and lamentation of the survivors. Such is the report of those who know the Orient of to-day in Syria and Arabia, and such was the case in those countries even two or three thousand years ago.' 1'The most faithful and detailed description of the marriage and funeral festivities of to-day is found in the exceedingly copious treatise, “ Die syrische Dreschtafel,” by Wetzstein, in Bastian’s Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 1873, pp. 270 to 302. As to the seven days’ duration of marriage feasts and lamen- tation for the dead in ancient Israel, cf. Judges xiv. 15, Genesis 1. 10 and 1 Sam. xxxi. 13. The Folk-Song of Israel. 3 Of course, with every festival these songs die away, for folk-songs are transmitted from mouth to mouth, and not in writing. It is but lately that attempts have been made to preserve these fugi- tive productions, not for the people among whom they arose (for among them the folk-song springs in ever new forms suffi- cient for present needs), but for philologists and connoisseurs, for science in distant lands. In ancient times, only by a happy chance and very exceptionally were poems of this kind put into writing and transmitted to posterity. It is obvious that hardly anywhere can we count less on such a result than in the ancient Hebrew literature; for what we possess of this in our Old Tes- tament is only the collection of the holy scriptures of Israel, in which folk-poesy, and especially secular songs treating of mar- riage and death, seem to find no place. It is true that in the course of the history we read an account of Samson’s wedding, and we learn there of numerous customs which are still in vogue to-day,’ and also of the riddle which broke off the marriage before its consummation, but we hear nothing of the songs that were sung. Nevertheless, we possess a whole bookful of bridal songs, which bears throughout a popular stamp, —‘“ The Song of Solomon.” Whether it forms a whole, or consists of many single pieces, whether it belongs to dramatic or to lyric poetry, and whoever may be its author, this much is certain beyond a doubt: it served in its whole compass to glorify marriage in ancient Israel, and bears the most genuine imprint of the folk- song.” The fact that, beside the shepherd and the shepherdess, King Solomon, too, is mentioned in the poem, undoubtedly gave the first occasion for incorporating the beautiful book in the col- lection of holy scriptures. Pious exertions to interpret the book in a religious sense have secured to it for all time the position it thus obtained. So stands the ease without doubt, in regard to the song composed for the wedding of a king, which has been handed down to us as Psalm xlv. ; this, however, is a bridal song which does not bear the stamp of the people, but of conscious art. Songs of lamentation, too, are not entirely wanting. We have, indeed, the precious song of David on the death of Saul and Jon- athan, 2 Sam. i. 17-27, introduced by the words, ‘* And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over J onathan his 1 Cf. the proof of this in Wetzstein, ibid. p. 287 ff. 2 So, also Wetzstein, ibid. p- 291, and, on this basis, Delitzsch in his Com- mentar, 1875, p. 172. 4 The Folk-Song of Israel. son ;” and, again, some deeply felt but probably incomplete lines of verse from the lamentation of David for Saul’s captain, Abner (2 Sam. iii. 83 and 34). But our previous statement in re- gard to Psalm xlv. as a marriage song holds good for these two pieces ; they are not genuine songs of lamentation in the sense that they were funeral laments of the people, but are the result of art. For the funeral lamentation did not belong to the sphere of man; as among the Greeks and Romans, so also among the Sy- rians and Arabians down to our day and among the Israelites of the Old Testament, it belonged to the otherwise very limited circle of woman’s public vocation. This fact is proved, as far as our own time is concerned, by Wetzstein, one of the men who have most thoroughly known the Orient of to-day, in his essay already quoted (page 294) in regard to Damascus and the whole coun- try east of the Jordan and Mount Lebanon, in the towns, vil- lages, and encampments extending far and wide. The Italian traveler Mariti witnessed one hundred and twenty-five years ago in Jaffa, the seaport of Jerusalem, a funeral the character of which entirely corresponded to what has been said above.1 The loud lamentation at the bier of the departed one is the affair of the women alone; outside of the house, the relatives and neighbors are all assembled, to lift up their voices in a great chorus of woe, and to move with gestures of despair around the bier in mournful procession. But the horrible howl of lamenta- tions 2 which they all set up is interrupted again and again by the chant of the proper songs of lamentation, in measured verse and musical form. These songs are the possession of profes- sional and hired mourning-women in the towns, and of skillful and experienced volunteers in the country, who administer this treasure of folk-poesy, gather and increase it, selecting appropri- ate songs according to circumstances or even altering them; these women provide themselves with associates and pupils, to whom they pass on their occupation. That the same customs prevailed among the Israelites of the Old Covenant no one knew till re- cently. The traditions of post-biblical Judaism, despite their 1 His report may be found, in a German translation with notes, in my essay, “Die hebriiische Leichenklage,” Zeitschrift des deutsche Paliistina-Vereins, vi. p. 180 ff. | 2 In Syria nothing but the artfully lengthened wel: = “ woe is me,” of the ‘0 Hebrew haj, abi, haj, ad6n, 1 Kings xiii, 30 and Jer. xxii. 18 and xxxiv. 5; this is the “ wailing ”’ of Jer. ix. 9, 17-19 ; xxxi. 15; Amos v. 16 and Micah i. 4. The Folk-Song of Israel. : 5 enormous size, have preserved only indistinct recollections of these practices! Moreover, nobody could say how much of this material descended from Old Testament times, and how much was added later én, from other sources. The statements of the Old Testament, on the other hand, were too scanty, overlaid, and in- distinct for one to derive from them a clear idea; and, above all, what was the good —as far as the understanding of Holy Scrip- ture was concerned — of investigating these customs of the folk- life of ancient Israel ? No one suspected that Holy Writ concealed a whole treasure of songs which were sung in imitation of those mourning-women who chanted the lamentations, and in which the distressing notes of their mourning melodies resound to the present day. This may seem difficult to comprehend, since every one knows that the Old Testament includes a whole book of chants of lam- entation which in the Hebrew text bears only the name of Eka, according to the initial word, but in the Talmud and elsewhere in the Jewish traditions is called Kindth, ‘‘ chants of lamenta- tions,” and everywhere in the translations is rendered correspond- ingly. But, in the case of national mourning songs over the fall of Jerusalem, nobody thought of the funeral chant of lamentation belonging to the sphere of daily life; far from drawing the cor- rect conclusion from the book, the custom grew up of attributing to the word “ Kina” a general meaning, and thus other passages in the Old Testament lost their proper range of signification. The poetic form might have led to the discovery of the true state of things; but it was in the case of this very book that the ob- servation of most was diverted from the really significant matter by the external addition of the artificial alphabetical structure of the songs; this has nothing to do with the chant of lamenta- tion, but finds application in songs of all kinds, and preéminently in didactic poems (cf. Psalms ix. xxv. xxxiv. xxxvii. exi. exii. exix. exly. and Proy. xxxi. 10-31)? 1 The best compilation is given by Perles, “ Die Leichenfeierlichkeiten im nachbiblischen Judenthume” (Frankel’s Monatschrift f. G. u. W. v. Juden- thums, Bd. X. 1861, especially p. 20 ff.). 2 For most readers it will seem superfluous to indicate what is meant by the alphabetical structure. The poet begins the first word of a certain see- tion of every line of verse (Ps. exi. and cxil.) of every verse (Prov. xxxi. 10, etc.), of every second (Lam. iv.) or every third verse (Lam. l.-lll.), ete. with the successive letters of the alphabet, —as we should say from A to Z until the end of the alphabet is reached. It is therefore a kind of acrostic 3 only, in place of a word or sentence with a meaning, we have the mere scheme of the alphabet. 6 The Folk-Song of Israel. In order to make clear what is the really significant and more deeply penetrating matter connected, in the first four chapters of the Book of Lamentations, with the alphabetical structure, I must begin a little farther back. The fundamental law which distinguishes the metrical lan- guage of all times and nations from the unmetrical is this: In prose the stream of discourse flows on unchecked, its form being connected with the current of the thought, so that, with the mat- ter of the thought, the length of the sentences changes constantly in various ways. Poetry, on the contrary, puts its treasure of thoughts into relatively short lines. Their shortness and their mutual relations, regulated according to fixed laws which differ greatly with different nations and languages, strike the ear in agreeable contrast. When poetic forms have attained a higher de- velopment, several — at the least two — of these smallest wholes, the lines of verse, are connected with one another through a new bond and present a higher unity of form. There are many differ- ent ways of forming these higher unities: variation in the rhyth- mical structure and length of the lines, among the ancient Greeks and Romans; alliteration among the ancient Germanic nations ; end-rhyme in secular poetry, since the beginning of the Middle Ages, and others yet. Among the Hebrews the thought was the new formative power which created out of the separate shortest wholes of metrical language a higher unity. Although the sense breaks off the discourse into lines, nevertheless no idea is com- pleted in a single one of these short lines; on the contrary, as a rule, several of them, usually two, are forced by the sense to come together to form the composite unity of the verse. The sense-relations of the single verse-lines may be very differ- ent. The repetition of the same idea in other words is certainly quite frequent, but the name “ parallelismus membrorum ” — de- rived by Lowth from this particular case, and still in use at the present day — does not do justice to the great complexity of the matter. At any rate, the result is a peculiar, undulating move- ment of the discourse, a fullness of expression, a wealth of im- ages, and an affectionate lingering on details, — all this, together with a slow and hesitating progress of the thought. This may be illustrated by any good example. I select the beginning of the well-known Second Psalm : — 1. Why do the heathen gather together And the nations whisper in vain ? The Folk-Song of Israel. 7 2. Prepared for war are the kings of the world, And all the chiefs take counsel Against Jehovah and his anointed. 3. “Let us break their bands asunder And throw their cords off our hands.” 4. He who dwelleth in heaven laughs, The Lord derides their words. No hearer will miss the end of even a single line, or the connec- tion of the two (once of three) lines which form the higher unity of the parallel verse! The impression of harmonious art is 1m- pressively enhanced by the equal length of the verse-lines; this appears more distinctly in the original text than in any trans- lation. It is of little consequence that a fixed measure for this harmony of verses has nof yet been found; it is even doubtful if the Hebrews possessed any strict metre in our sense of the word.” This much is certain, that a substantially equal length of the lines, at least within the same verse, is the fundamental law of normal Hebrew verse. This fact can be observed and iso- lated by the ear in the present text of the Old Testament, de- spite all the vicissitudes it has undergone. In this fundamental point the chants of lamentation pursue a course of their own. It will be sufficient to quote the initial verses of the second chapter of Lamentations : — 1. Ah, how the Lord in his anger has smitten The daughter of Zion, And dashed from heaven to earth The beauty of Israel, And no way remembered his footstool In the day of his wrath ! 2. The Lord has destroyed without mercy All the dwellings of Jacob ; And fiercely demolished in his anger The stronghold of the daughter of Judah, 1 It is evident, but unimportant for this passage, that, under these circum- stances, the Hebrew verse fills the place of the stanza in the poetry of other nations. It is, therefore, an unjustified postulate if one thinks he must find still more comprehensive stanzas ; if they are really found, a third, not a see- ond, unity has been reached, that is, the second higher poetic unity. * My essay, “Uber vermeintliche metrische Formen in der hebriiischen Poesie” (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1874, p. 747 ff.), gives a summary of the earlier attempts at a Hebrew prosody. Compare, also, in the way of sup- plement, the Zeitschrift fiir alttest Wiss. 1882, pp. 1 f., 52, although it is no longer a complete statement. The counting of the syllables is the prominent feature, Bickell contends : Ley is in favor of counting the words, or the syl- lables bearing the principal accent. 8 The Folk-Song of Israel. And desecrated and overthrown The realm and its princes. 3. In the glow of his wrath he has cut off The horn of Israel ; Has drawn back his right hand From before the enemy, And burned against Jacob like a flaming fire Which devours round about. It is not harmony which prevails in these verses, but unlike- ness; and yet there is a fixed rule governing the latter. Each verse consists of two lines, the second of which is always shorter than the first, on the average in the ratio of three to two, so that the uniformly undulating movement, which is the usual charac- teristic of Hebrew poetry, is changed here to a peculiar hesitat- ing and limping metre. This is the prevailing method in the first four chapters of the Book of Lamentations. The fifth chap- ter is very different in regard to its versification and in other respects. This strange limping verse is by no means a peculiar- ity which characterizes this book alone, but it is found elsewhere in connected passages of greater or lesser length. One of the most brilliant examples, which, on account of its particularly care- ful structure and its good preservation, deserves to be inserted here entire, is found in Isaiah xiv. In close connection with the threatening prophecy of the destruction of Babylon, in chapter xiiil., which concludes with the announcement of Israel’s salvation in chapter xiv. 1 and 2, we read thus from the third to the twenty-second verse : — 3. And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy fear and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, 4. That thou shalt take up this song against the king of Babylon and say : Ah! how now the tyrant is at rest ! Ended is the oppression. 5. Jehovah has broken the staff of the wicked, The sceptre of the ruler, 6. Of him who smote the people in wrath, Smote without mercy, Who in his ire trampled on the nations And forever pursued them. 7. At rest he is ; at peace, the whole world Breaks forth into rejoicing. 8. Yea, the cypress trees rejoice at thee, The cedars of Lebanon. ‘¢ Since thou art laid low, there marches no longer Against us the feller of trees.”’ 10. iGh 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. iy e 18. 19. 20. 21. The Folk-Song of Israel. . The realm of shades beneath rises in uproar To meet thy arrival ; It has aroused the shades for thee, The leaders of the people, And stirred up from their thrones All the kings of the nations ; They all begin and say to thee : “Thou too, then, art prostrate as we are, Art become like unto us.” | Thy pomp has descended to the realm of death, And the clang of thy harps. Mouldy is the bed beneath thee, Thou art covered by worms. Alas ! how art thou fallen from heaven, Thou brilliant star of the morn! How art thou hewn down to the ground, Thou conqueror of nations! And yet thou hadst thought in thy heart, ‘To heaven will I ascend, High above the stars of God I will exalt my throne ; I will sit on the mount where the gods take counsel, In the farthest north. Above the heights of the clouds I will rise, And be like the Most High.” And now, thou ’rt hurled to the realm of death, In the deepest abyss. Those who behold thee stare at thy face, They examine thee : “‘Is this the man who caused the earth to tremble And the kingdoms to shake ? Who made the world like a wilderness, And demolished the cities thereof ; Who let not go the captives Each one [to his home] ?” ! All the kings of the nations, all of them Sleep in honor [—], } But thou art cast out of thy grave, Like a sprout abhorred, Surrounded by the slain, even those pierced by the sword, [Like a carcass trodden down] 2 Those who descended to the depths of the grave [—].2 Thou shalt not join them, For thou hast shattered thy land And murdered thy people ; Never and never shall be named The seed of the evildoers. Prepare the shambles for his sons For the guilt of their fathers, 10 The Folk-Song of Israel. That they do not rise and capture the land And seize the fullness of the earth (—).1 This piece leads us farther on in several directions. It is not a city the fate of which is here bewailed, but a man, the king of Babylon, and the subject is not destruction, but the death and arrival in the realm of shades of a person. The peculiar limping verse which we observed in the Lamentations is here more regu- larly constructed and more sharply accented ; really parallel sen- tences occur more frequently in the uneven lines, and the single verse occupies a more independent position. Furthermore, the limping verse of the song which Israel is to raise over the fallen king of Babylon contrasts vividly with the even movement of the normal verses in chapter xiii. 2-xiv. 2, and in the concluding sen- tences, xiv. 22, 23; this kind of verse only prevails to the close of the song. This must needs be so, since this versification is the characteristic mark of the song of lamentation as such. For the song, which in the Hebrew, in xiv. 4, bears a colorless name, mashal, is rightly called, in the Greek translation, Opjvos ; the Hebrew is nowhere else translated in this manner, and the gen- eralization of the term can be easily explained. We must needs assume that it was originally hakkim hazzoth, ‘this lamentation song.” With this assumption agrees the fact that the song begins with the same word, “ Alas” (cf., also, v. 12) as Lamenta- tions 1., li., iv., the specific exclamation of the funeral lament, which, therefore, gives the name to the book. In the fact that the lament here has the force of a scornful pzan and a song of vengeance, sung, not by the professional mourning-women, but by the people redeemed from servitude, there is a metaphorical use which certainly goes farther than if the same people sang a dirge on account of their capital being reduced to ashes. But now, after these examples, which we have already extended perhaps too far, proof must be furnished that it was really the popular funeral lamentation, and that the ear of the people of Israel at that time detected in these strangely constructed, limping verses the melodies of their mourning-women. Their mourning-women. They are mentioned only once in the Old Testament, but this single passage is sufficient proof. + In this translation the brackets indicate words transferred from their place ; to the brackets filled in corresponded an empty pair, with the same fig- ures [ ]} and [ ]%, where the words stand in the text. Parentheses indicate a word that has been omitted. The reader will thus see how rarely the original Hebrew rhythm has been impaired. The Folk-Song of Israel. 11 We read in Jeremiah ix. 17: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; ” and now comes the beginning of the poetically conceived word of God : — | Take heed and summon the mourning-women that hither they come; And send for the cunning women that hither they come : 17. Let them hasten and raise for us the cry of wailing and woe, That our eyes shall flow over with streams of tears, And fountains of water shall gush from our eyelids. So far we have distinctly normal verses of even movement; now, when the direct discourse is introduced by an untranslata- ble word, corresponding to the Greek 67 recitativum, comes the song which is sung by the mourning-women, who have appeared in the meantime:— _ , 18. Hark, lowly resounds the wailing from Zion : Alas, how we fared ! O woe, what disgrace! Out of the land we are driven : They destroyed the dwellings ! Again, a new introduction is made in even-moving verses : — 19. For hear, ye women, the word of Jehovah, Let your ear retain the word of his mouth, And teach your daughters the cry of woe And each the other the song of lament (kina). And now, again, introduced as direct discourse, comes the second song : — 20. Behold, how death enters our windows Breaks into the castles. He slaughters the children on the street, The warriors on the market-place (—).1 21. And corpses of men lie there Like dung on the field, — Like ears of corn cut by the reaper Which no one gathers. I need not call attention to the wonderful, impressive beauty of the passage ; its merit appears even in the baldest translation. We are concerned with a definite question: the passage leaves nothing to be desired in the way of answer. The mourning- women themselves are introduced here as speaking, or rather singing, professionally. They are summoned in order to intensify to the highest degree by their melodies the grief of the mourn- ers. Moreover, the corresponding word in the parallel verse tells us that they exercise this office as a professional duty, for the * The words, “ Speak, thus saith the Lord,” are wanting in the Septuagint, and are to be omitted, as they break the connection. 12 The Folk-Song of Israel. phrase ‘‘cunning woman,” or “wise woman,” although it has different significations in different languages (in German, “ weise Frau,” “kluge Frau,” means a prophetess or sorceress; in French, “ sage femme” denotes a midwife), always and every- where indicates a women who practices a peculiarly feminine art as her trade or profession. The women are themselves instructed by the prophet: they are to listen attentively, in order to increase their treasure of songs of lamentation with a new one, and to bequeath the newly-learned song to future generations, as for a long time men will wish to hear it. Besides, there is the distine- tion between the cries of woe and the song of lamentation, which at the same time supplement each other. The length, too, of the songs of lamentation given here (2—4 double lines or verses), which are as nearly as possible like those that were really sung, agrees fully with what is still customary to-day. Everything is exactly the same as in the funeral lamentation of the present day in Syria, as described by Wetzstein, and that in Palestine depicted by Mariti 125 years ago. (Compare above, page 31. A more detailed account is found in Wetzstein’s essay mentioned before, and in my own essay, “ Die hebraische Leichenklage.”’ ) Viewed in the light of these more circumstantial descriptions, the picture formed from the few verses of Jeremiah resembles present customs to such an extent that we venture to assert that nothing essential was changed in the course of 2,500 years: we may safely supplement and give life to the picture in the Old Testament with these descriptions. But one change, as unessen- tial as it was indispensably necessary, can be noted. I refer to the poetic form of the funeral lamentation. While the latter, in the Syria of the present day, follows the customary Arabic metres, we perceive here, as soon as the special song of lamentation be- gins, that limping verse already known to us, with the faltering second member. This is an evident proof that the professional funeral lamentation, as a rule, made use of these verses, and assuredly of a monotonous melody also, adapted to them, or, much rather, inherent in them. The great prophets and the singer, or singers, of the Book of Lamentations employed this versification because it afforded them the surest way of putting their listeners into a mood correspond- ing to their melancholy utterances. High and low, learned and unlearned, old and young, man and woman, all understood this melody, all felt themselves transported by it to the bier of their relatives or neighbors, and were carried away by it to bewail their The Folk-Song of Israel. 13 people, their city, themselves. Thus the prophets took possession of the folk-song, and sang their melodies in imitation of the mourning-women, so that their preaching might the more Buren enter the hearts of the people. I say “they sang in imitation, not ‘they composed in imitation,” for both were one and insep- arable, as long as the preaching of the prophets really went from mouth to mouth among the people, and was not simply intrusted to writing. We may undoubtedly imagine the prophets — Jere- miah, for instance — standing at the corner of the street or on the market-place, striking up the awful melody of the song of lamentation, and thus attracting many more to the already great crowd of listeners. There is no doubt that the prophets knew how to enhance the effect of their song by expression and gesture. The same Jeremiah, to whom we owe our certain information in regard to the Hebrew funeral lamentation, depicts in another passage (xxxvill. 21 ff.) a particularly impressive scene, which quite irrefutably proves that our conclusion as to the close dra- matic representation is correct.! Having been summoned by King Zedekiah, during the siege of Jerusalem, to a secret conference, in which the king, dreading his nobles as much as the enemy, demands a word of God to guide his decisions, Jeremiah promises, as ever, salvation and res- cue for the king and the city, only in case the king should sur- render to the Chaldeans, but disaster to both if he should continue his resistance to the enemy. As the king hesitates, Jeremiah re- peats his advice, but to strengthen it he adds : — But in case thou wilt not surrender, Jehovah has shown to me this vision. I saw how all the women that were left in the palace of the king of Judah were brought out to the commander of the army of the king of Babylon, and sang thus : — Misled thou art and overpowered By the friends of thy bosom ; Thy feet are sunk in the mire, But they have vanished. Here are two verses of lamentation song in the midst of prose. The prophet saw and heard what the future was to bring. On the march into servitude, the female attendants of the kine of Judah (that is, of Zedekiah himself, who stood before him) begin, in the presence of their fallen master, the funeral lamentation, and loudly grieve that he followed not the faithful admonition of the prophet, but the suggestions of his supposed friends. * Cf. my essay, Zeitschr. f. d. altt. Wiss., 1883, p. 299 ff. 14 The Folk-Song of Israel. We can hardly conceive this scene in any other way than this: The prophet, in unfolding this dramatic representation of the future, must have given the picture he drew the most striking and convincing reality by singing the melody of the songs of funeral lamentation in the ears of the king. But perhaps this is not yet all that can be said. The wording of the song is appli- cable to the king and his fate only in a metaphorical sense: the song of lamentation refers in reality to a hero slain in ambush, betrayed and shamefully forsaken by his friends, —a case that may have occurred often enough. What if the song of lamen- tation which Jeremiah sings before the king were one actually disseminated far and wide in the mouths of the people, and origi- nating in the song-treasury of the mourning-women? In such a case, the effect on the listener must have been greatly increased. Concerning no other piece is the probability so great that it was drawn, immediately and without change, from that treasury. Connection with well-known and popular songs, and adaptation of these to new occasions, may — at least during the earlier times — be postulated as quite the rule when the prophet strikes up a song of lamentation, though, of course, we have no proof. But Jeremiah is by no means the first prophet who has the folk-song of Israel on his lips. On the contrary, this metaphori- cal, prophetic song of lamentation is very old, for us as old as the words of the prophets themselves. We find it in Amos, the earliest of the prophets of the Scripture, completely developed, frequently employed, and used as a matter of course, so that it can hardly have been introduced by him. We read in v. 1 : — Hear ye this word which I take up against you as a song of lamentation, O house of Israel :— Prostrate is fallen to rise no more The virgin of Israel ; There she lies, stretched on the ground, No one raises her up. The song of lamentation dies at once away like that in Jer. XXXvVili., and the first in Jer. ix. The only time when the char- acteristic word, kina, occurs again, in Amos viii. 10, there begins at once, among the connected verses of even flow, a genuine song of lamentation of three limping verses; the name and the thing come together. From this time on, the song of lamentation is not silent; it is found again in almost every prophet. Hosea has hardly broken out into the “ Alas” of the song of lamentation when the limping verses appear, and a song of lamentation of The Folk-Song of Israel. 15 three verses is interwoven (xi. 8). This rhythm prevails, cer- tainly without any positive introduction, from chapter vi. 7 to vii. 1; but in the unusually difficult text of the gloomy prophet, it seems to lie hidden in many a passage. Isaiah inserts at once in his first chapter, beginning with the awful “ Alas,” a long song of lamentation (i. 21-31), of which we shall speak hereafter, and the fine discourse against Sennacherib, which, rightly or wrongly, is ascribed to him in the historical narrative, 2 Kings xix. 21— 28 (compare Isaiah xxxvii. 22-29), is, from beginning to end, a song of lamentation, a true model of its kind." His contemporary, Micah, mentions in ii. 4, the ery of woe; in the parallel line is mashal (rhyme), as in the Hebrew text, Is. xiv. 4, where we should expect kina; and what follows has, again, been a song of lamentation; the limping verses have in- deed been jumbled together. But his prophecies of misfortune, in chapters i. 6 and iii. 10-16, are also songs of lamentation. Of the school of Isaiah, the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah cultivate the song of lamentation with particular predilection. In Nahum it appears, again and again, in ii. 1-8, 12 f.; iii. 14— 18: in Zephaniah the second discourse of reproof, iii. 1-18, is a song of lamentation, to which belong almost all the additions in li. 4, and the appendix iii. 14.2 The third prophet, Habakkuk, seems at least to begin with a song of lamentation in i. 2. That Jeremiah has other songs of lamentation beside those mentioned above is almost a matter of course (cf. only ix. 96, 10, specifi- cally announced ; but otherwise xxii. 6 f., 21-23 ; xiii. 18-27 ; xviii. 13-17).* The discourses against foreign nations in Jeremiah xlvi.—xlix. contain a great number of songs of lamentation, one of which ap- pears prominently in the parallel text of the Book of Obadiah, especially in verses 6 f. Ezekiel, more often than all the other prophets, announces his prophecies as lamentations (xix. 1; xxvi. 17; xxvii. 2, 32; xxviii. 12; xxxii. 2: cf., also, xxxii. 18). These pieces are among the most certain evidences — if there were any need of such — of the correctness of the observa- tions that have been presented here, although the last pieces show + Cf. my essay in Z. A. W., 1892, pp. 31-37. 7 Cf. the attempt of restoration in Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i. p. 612. ® For Zephaniah, cf. my essay in Theol. Stud. wu. Krit., 1892. * For these last two references I am indebted to a communication from my friend, Professor Cornill. 16 The Folk-Song of Israel. no longer the same rigid manner of verse of the songs of lamen- tation as the first ones in chs. xix. and xxvi. As belonging to the time of the exile, Isaiah xiv. has already been mentioned, but with this epoch is connected the great prophet who is designated by the name of the Deutero-Isaiah. To his prophecy in some twelve pieces must be added other sections written by another hand and incorporated in his book! Thus it is probable that about fifty of these chants of lamentation sung in imitation of popular melodies may have been preserved in the remnants of the prophetic writings that have come down to us. Songs of lamentation are lacking only in the books of Joel, Jonah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, that is, in all the books poste- rior to the exile, a fact which deserves our careful consideration in a high degree. It goes without saying, that the period of at least 250 years, through which we can follow the popular funeral lamentation in the mouth of the prophets, was a time, not of rigid immobility, but of constant development. The form, indeed, remained the same, but the content changed as dictated by the needs of the time, and as the people became more and more accustomed to this particularly effective kind of prophetic discourse. Its first application, indeed, necessitated an adaptation of the original meaning, in the transfer to another domain. For the prophet was no mourning-woman, and the death of an individual mem- ber of the nation was not a cause for his speaking. It was the fate of his whole people that moved him. It was not physical but spiritual and national death which he was called upon to lament, whether as a thing of the past or as an event which he foresaw in his prophetic vision. It was the inexorable and irrey- ocable element in this fate that justified the adaptation of the song of funeral lamentation, and made it capable of producing a deep impression. On this level of metaphor, therefore, we find the prophetic song of lamentation, during all the earlier times, in Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel xix. Everywhere the moral corruption, or the fate of the people of Israel, is bewailed in strains of lamentation which are tragically earnest, and come from the depths of the heart. But times changed. The more sadly the fate of Israel was fulfilled, the more the predictions of her prophets were turned 1 Enumeration and discussion of the pieces in the Deutero-Isaiah may be found in Zeitschr. f. d. altt. Wiss., 1891, pp. 234-245. The Folk-Song of Israel. He against foreign nations, her tormentors; it was upon them that destruction and national death were then denounced. Funeral lamentation is still funeral lamentation; here, too, there was death, and the song of lamentation, which had gradually become a mere form, was applied also to other nations, — now and then, perhaps, with a trace of compassion for their fate; but more and more the mourning became ironical, and the song of lamenta- tion turned into a scornful triumphal chant, and, indirectly, a song announcing salvation for Israel. The earliest prophet in whom this second stage of adaptation, the ironical song of lament, can be proved, is Nahum; at the same time, he is the only prophet of his era who announces absolute salvation for his people. It is found afterwards in Jeremiah xlvi.—xlix.; in Ezekiel, who, by the name he gives it, proves the correctness of this conception for the second stage of the lament; and in Isaiah xxxviii. and xiy., and also in the Deutero-Isaiah, chapter xlvii., in the funeral lament over Babylon. But, beside this, we observe in him a new and third stage of adaptation. As the funeral lamentation over Israel’s despot means for Israel nothing but salvation, and as the prophet at that time has, on the whole, nothing to prophecy but salvation for his people, the song of lamentation consequently becomes in reality a message of joy, and the verse of the song of lamenta- tion is now completely freed from the ritual of the funeral la- ment. It becomes the hymnic verse in general, the proper poetic form in which the prophet rises to higher lyric strains. Thus we find this verse used everywhere else in the Deutero-Isaiah (ef. xl, 9-11; xliv. 23-28; xlv. 14-25; 1. 4-11; especially in the great hymn in alternating rhythms, chapter li. 9-lii. 11ff.). Of course this necessitates the further supposition that at the time of the Deutero-Isaiah, and as far as his view extended in the time of exile, the funeral lamentation of Israel was no longer practiced in the old forms. That it arose again is certain; in fact, it has lived down to the present day, but it could hardly have borne its former garb when it arose again. ‘The employment of the song of lamentation by the prophets, and the history through which it passed, must have displaced the limping verse from the funeral melodies of the mourning-women. The fact that it often occurs later in the Psalms, merely as a form, in altogether colorless usage, can be explained only in this manner. It is true there is one song in the Book of Psalms in which the verse is con- sclously employed in the old meaning, in the first adaptation of the prophets. This is Psalm exxxvii., where, beginning with the fourth 18 The Folk-Song of Israel. verse, instead of the specimen of Zion’s merry and perhaps vo- luptuous melodies, which is demanded by Israel’s oppressors, all at once the song of lamentation begins and continues to the end of the Psalm, as the only song of Zion that could then be sung. The deep impression which this Psalm even to-day produces on every receptive soul must have been incomparably greater at the time when, at its very beginning, the melody of the funeral lamentation could be detected. A chant of lamentation, at least in the broader sense, is a second song, although at last it breaks out in joyous confidence: I mean the noble Psalms xlii. and xliii., forming a single piece. But although Psalms xix., xxvii., lxv., Ixxxiv., cl., show, in whole or in part, the same limping verse, a connection with its original signification cannot here be estab- lished, and the consciousness of it must have been lost at the time when they originated. This may be called a fourth stage of adaptation, when nothing but the empty form was left. At most, one assertion, perhaps, may still be made, in view of the fact that the verse sounds forth with particular frequency in the group of pilgrimage-songs (Ps. exx.—cxxxiv.), that the limping verse be- longed originally to folk-poesy, and was especially popular among the great masses of the people, even in later times. Jor, if there are folk-songs in the Book of Psalms, they certainly are to be found in this little book of songs. If we keep in view this history of the song of lamentation in the Hebrew Scriptures, — a history firmly established in its prin- cipal features, — we shall draw from it valuable assistance in determining the age of certain parts of the Old Testament. We shall then beware of bringing the Book of Lamentations (at least chapters i., ii., and iv.) too far down into the time of the Deutero- Isaiah, or a still later period. To place Psalm cxxxvii. in the era of Simon Maccabzeus, as Professor Cheyne (Bampton Lec- tures, pp. 67 ff.) proposed, becomes a sheer impossibility ; we must leave it in the Exile, and, moreover, as far back as the be- ginning of it. To locate Psalm xlii. in the years 199 and 198 B. c. (ibidem, p. 114 ff.) is a highly questionable proceeding. On the other hand, doubts whether 2 Kings xix. 21 comes in fact from Isaiah are more justifiable if we consider that here the second stage of adaptation is evident, the existence of which cannot be proved elsewhere before Nahum (probably soon after 626 B. G:); Similarly, the judgment of criticism on Mich. vii. 1s verified by the fact that in this joyous strain the adaptation of the song of lamentation stands exactly on the level of the Deutero-Isaiah, and The Folk-Song of Israel. 19 cannot be proved to have existed elsewhere before him. As far as I know, it was Wellhausen who first supplemented Ewald’s obser- vations in regard to Mich. vi. and vii. by making a new section beginning with vii., stating that between vil. 6 and 7 there was a gap of about a century. This is also shown by an insight ito the history of the song of lamentation, and, on the other hand, the beginning of a new section becomes certain In view of the fact that, with verse 7, the verse of the song of lamentation begins all at once. This, too, is not an isolated case; on the contrary, in other places the appearance or breaking out of the verse of the song of lamentation will render observation in the sphere of higher criticism feasible, or give it support. I will name only one ex- ample: The verses in Zeph. ii., 11, 12, ii. 9, 10, are proved to be an interpolation by the fact that they are not written in the limping versification which is the distinguishing characteristic of the whole context. Of course this critical instrument is a two-edged sword which will wound him who is not careful, and doubles the task of him who is conscious of this fact. In the course of these statements I have repeatedly been obliged to refer to such and such a piece as a song of lamentation, over which the conscientious reader, who opened the text to test my assertions, will not fail to shake his head doubtfully. But, in several cases, special attention has been called to the fact that, now and then, there are textual errors to be corrected, in order to disclose again the limping verse of the song of lamentation. In fact this is a necessity in very many cases, aS may be easily understood. The period of the writers of the Old Testament was followed by that of the scribes; the era of the spirit by that of the letter. There was no longer poetry in the Old Testament, but merely one indivisible Holy Scerip- tures. ven to-day, certain pious Christian circles are painfully affected if one speaks of the poetic beauty of parts of the Bible, of the poet of the Book of Job and others. As later Judaism lost even the knowledge of the fundamental laws of Hebrew poe- try, it is no wonder that the consciousness of the difference be- tween the normal verse of even movement and the limping verse of the song of lamentation had vanished. The generally equal length of the normal verse-lines was obvious. When the reason of deviations from this rule was no longer understood, during the long period of entirely unrestrained and careless treatment of the Biblical texts, intentional or negligent effacement of the difference between the longer first and the shorter second mem- 20 The Folk-Song of Israel. ~ ber was the most natural thing in the world. Thus we can ex- plain the fact that no more comprehensive passages in the melody of the song of lamentation have come down to us entirely without deviations, — deviations which are due, not as in Zeph. ii. 11, 12, and i. 9, 10, to interpolation, but to corruption. Only an expert and considerate criticism can venture to pronounce a decision as to the reason of the deviation and the restoration of the original reading. The critic must investigate, in every single case, whether he has really to deal with a song of lamentation or not; and, fur- ther, how far the intention went to write in this verse; then he may proceed to attempt a restoration within lines securely estab- lished. Textual criticism — above all, conjectural criticism, which, un- fortunately, is often our only recourse here —is not everybody’s affair, and qualification for it cannot be obtained by diligence alone. Butso much is certain, that, to a great extent, a sound textual criticism is not possible without an insight into the struc- ture of the verse of the song of lamentation, and, on the other hand, that this insight can become in many cases an invaluable aid to the restoration of the text. That even in this manner in- fallible results cannot be obtained, goes without saying; yet I should like to offer here at least one example of the restoration of a partly buried song of lamentation of special beauty: it 1s the song of lamentation of Isaiah (i. 21-31) :1— Alas! how is changed to a harlot The faithful castle, The shield of righteousness, of justice the shelter, But now the murderer’s ! To dross has been changed thy silver ; Thy wine is become flat ; Thy chiefs and princes have become rebels And companions of thieves. Every one of them loves bribery, And covets reward ; Therefore thus sayeth The Lord of hosts : “Ha! I will wreak vengeance on my enemies And revenge me on my foes, And stretch out my hand against thee, 1 For proposals for alterations in the Hebrew text, cf. my essay in Zeitschr. f. d. altt. Wiss., 1891, p. 245. On the whole subject I must refer here to my essays, Zum hebrdischen Klagelied and Das hebrdische Klagelied (ibidem, 1882 p. 1 ff.), which are still to be continued. The Folk-Song of Israel. 21 And will cleanse thy dross as with lye And remove what is soiled ; And will give thee judges again as before, And counselors as of yore. Then they shall call thee city of justice, A faithful stronghold. Zion will be redeemed by righteousness, Her citizens by justice, But destruction befalls the sinners and renegades, And those who forsook me shall vanish ; For they shall be ashamed of the oaks, their delight, And blush before the gardens, Since they resemble an oak with faded leaves, A garden without water. Then the proud one becomes like tow, And his doings as a spark, So they both will be burned together in a fire That none shall quench.” With this piece I may take leave of the popular song of lamen- tation in the mouth of the prophets. But we spoke at the be- ginning of funeral and wedding ; we found in the Song of Solo- mon a genuine, popular bridal song. Should the same not also be found in the mouth of the prophets? We need not dwell at any length upon the subject. It was not the province of the prophets to sing songs of joy. The terrible final fate of Israel drew near with such relentless necessity that the false prophet could at once be detected by his comforting, peaceful, joyous mes- sages (Mich. 11. 11; i. 11; Isaiah xxx. 10 ff.; Jer. vi. 14; viii. Pisexivold; xx 7 3 xxvii. 14: Ez. xi. 23x. 10, 16)5 Chat all sounds of joy and bridal songs shall grow silent is a frequent prophecy of Jeremiah (vii. 84; xvi. 9, and xxv. 10); not before the happy end of time shall they be heard again (xxxiii. 11). Only one prophet — the greatest and boldest of all — once dared to conceive the idea of bringing the popular wedding song within the domain of the prophetic preaching, and to carry it out so that an example might not be wanting of this kind of poetry. He makes use of it in order to produce by antithesis the most powerful impression. He once addressed the people of Jerusalem thus (Is. v. 1) :— A song I will sing of my beloved one, A love song of his vineyard. My beloved has a vineyard On solid mountain soil. The ground he tilled, the stones he removed, And planted the choicest vines. bo eS) The Folk-Song of Israel. A watch tower he built therein, A wine-press he hewed out, And then for the vintage sweet he waited, But it bore — wild grapes. Well, then, ye citizens of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge ye between me and my vineyard! What more could have been done to it that I have not done for it? why, when I waited for the produce of sweet grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? Well, then, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove the hedge, that it may serve as a pasture, and break down the wall, so that it shall be trodden down. I will lay it waste ; it shall not be pruned nor digged, so that briars and thorns shall shoot up, and I will forbid the clouds on high to bestow any rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his favorite plant, and he waited for charity and found bloody deeds, for righteousness and he found wickedness. As the prophet elsewhere takes words and melody from the mouth of the mourning-women, so in this instance he takes them from the lips of the leader of the chorus of girls who raise the bridal song. She sings of her most beloved one, the vineyard, the hard labor, the sweet juice, the precious fruit, the joy-dispens- ing drink. What is better adapted for a wedding? We feel ourselves transported into the Song of Solomon, with its eulogy of the beloved one and the reveling in the fragrance of the gar- den and the fruit, where he is overwhelmed with ecstatic joy. The song is sung to a people of agriculturists and vintagers. The beginning is as sweet as the song of the nightingale, and can hardly be imitated even approximately in the translation. Of course the harmonious euphony vanishes soon with the shrill, dis- cordant sound, “ and it bore — wild grapes.” Instead of the song of the maidens, with their sweet allurement, there resounds a grave and mighty voice. It is the beloved one himself, the owner of the vineyard, but now its judge, — none other than the chastising God of Israel, before whose question his people, conscious of guilt, must be silent. Thus, even the bridal song had unwillingly to in- crease the terrors of the judgment of God. We set out with the role which the folk-song plays in our time, and we have found that it proved its power of attraction on the eround of the Old Testament to a still greater degree, probably, than among us with a Goethe and a Uhland. For if the latter learned from it how to write verse that should please and move and elevate, the prophets made it useful in the preaching by which they sought to influence their people to lead a godly life, and thus save them from destruction. He to whom it may seem The Folk-Song of Israel. 25 that we accord quite too much honor to the folk-song, may be referred to modern times, to men of God who knew nothing of the course of the prophets, and yet imitated them. I have in mind the peculiar phenomenon of the history of the church hymn which is called by the old name, ‘‘ Contrafactum.” As far as 1 can follow the matter, it became the custom in Germany, from the fifteenth century, to adapt profane folk-songs of all kinds, even some of a very dubious character and of frivolous tendencies, and make of them spiritual hymns which had the same cadence as the* folk-songs; the wording was kept as close to the profane songs as was possible; thus, with the melody of the latter, it was spread among the people. In this way it crept into favor, gained friends through the popular melody, and even displaced its prototype. No less a person than Martin Luther himself, the father of Ger- man evangelical church hymns, is found among these ‘ Contra- factum”’ poets, in the case of one of his most beautiful songs, which has probably been translated into all languages spoken by Protestant Christians, — his precious ‘* Christmas Song of the Children,” ‘“ From heaven on high I’ve come to you.” It is nothing else but a ‘“‘ Contrafactum ”’ of the very popular and widely known “ Kranzsingen,” a song with chorus, on the occasion of a merry combat of riddles between lads an@ lasses: it is closely allied to the bridal and wedding songs. Originally it was sung, indeed, in the same melody; four years later it acquired a beau- tiful melody of its own. I will insert here, to close, the first stanza of Luther’s song, and of its prototype in the German lan- guage. Thus Luther: Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her, Ich bring euch gute neue Mir, Der guten Miir bring ich so viel, Davon ich singen und sagen will : and thus the folk-song he followed : Von fernen Landen komm ich her Ich bring euch viel der neuen Mir, Der neuen Mii bring ich so viel Mehr denn ich euch hie sagen will. KarL Buppkr. UNIVERSITY OF STRASSBURG. ee