Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/79

Rh INTRODUCTION. Ixxiii Thomas Rymer, in the romance of that name,^ has choice of two supernatural gifts, surpassing ability either to " harpe " or else to " carpe "; ^ and he replies : . . . harpy nge kepe I notie^ * For tonge es chefe of mynstralcye. It is true that some of the ballads came to be recited, on account of their great length; and often a monotonous chant or recitative took the place of melody.* But even 1 See Thomas of Erceldoune, ed. Brandl, vv. 313 ff., 687 ff. 2 That is, to sing and narrate, to narrate in singing. Heldensage?' p. 381; Lachmann, Kl. Schr.^ I, 461 f., and especially 463 ; Wolf, Laisy p. 48 ff. ; Miillenhoff, Sagen u. s. w., p. ix. It is not always clear what antithesis we should understand by the phrase "sing and say." In Wtds{% v. 54, it seems almost a hendiadys, — " to tell in singing "; but singan (f^Se secgan is common elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon, and Puttenham, {Arte of English Poesie, ed. Arber, p. 26) remarks that even savages " do sing and also say their highest and holiest matter in certain riming versicles." Chaucer must refer to recitation in his couplet {Book Duch.^ v. 471 f.) : He sayed a lay,, a maner song, Withoute noote, withoute song ; and in the famous line of Troilus, v, 257, he uses the antithesis : And red wherso thou be, or elles songe. Even in the singing a difference was made between long ballads ' and the livelier or shorter kind. Chappell (II, 790 f.) speaks of his third class of " characteristic airs of England," that is, " the historical and very long ballads," as "in variably of simple construction, usually plaintive. . . . One peculiar feature of these airs is the long interval between each phrase [sie^, so well calculated for recitation and recovering the breath. . . . They were rarely if ever used for dancing." Bohme {Geschichte des Tanzesy p. 239) thinks the old narrative songs were given in the recitative of a single person, like modern Russian and Servian ballads ; the bystanders now and then joined in a sort of chorus. Wissmann {ICing Horn^ Quellen u. Forschungeny XLV, p. xxii), conjectures that while the narrative parts Digitized by LjOOQIC
 * That is, • I care not at all for harping.'
 * Standard passages which discuss this matter are W. Grimm,