Is there poetry
in the Aramaic of the book of Daniel? You would not have guessed it if you read
the book in translation until quite recently. The Jewish Publication Society
Version of 1917 seems to have been the first translation to distinguish poetry
from prose therein.
It’s hard to
find something you are not looking for. Prayer and prophecy are featured in the
book of Daniel. In a cross-cultural perspective, it is patent that both genres
of speech often take the form of verse. Awareness and appreciation of the diverse
genres represented in the Bible waxed and waned through the centuries, but was
not strong enough to impel readers to systematically distinguish verse from
prose, either in the book of Daniel or elsewhere in the Bible, until the
distinctive features of Hebrew verse were described with perspicacity by Lowth in
a series of lectures at Oxford published in 1753.
According to James
A. Montgomery, the first scholar to recognize that the book of Daniel contains
poetry was Leonhard Bertholdt. Bertholdt’s massive
commentary on Daniel (publication date: 1806-08) is not widely read today, but
earned him a professorship at the time.
Most Bibles now
print a number of passages in Daniel as verse. BHS versifies, to the exclusion
of introductory material, 2:20-23; 3:33; 4:7-9, 11-14, 31-32; 6:27-28; 7:9-10,
13-14, 23-27; NJPSV: 2:20-23; 4:8-9, 11-14, 20, 31-32; 7:9-10, 13-14; NIV:
2:20-23; 4:3 [= MT 3:33]; 4:34-35 [= MT 4:31-32]; 6:26-27 [= MT 6:27-28]; 7:9-10;
John J. Collins: 2:20-23; 4:7-9, 11-14a; 6:27-28; 7:9-10, 13-14.
The study of
Aramaic poetry in the book of Daniel is nonetheless in its infancy. The most
detailed study to appear to date is that of Segert.
Languages in Contact: Hebrew and Aramaic
The evidence of
the books of Ezra-Nehemiah and Daniel suggests that vocabulary, set phrases,
and syntactic patterns of ancient Hebrew of earlier times and of liturgical
Hebrew of the Persian and Hellenistic periods were taken over into Aramaic of
the same period in the context of the liturgy and in the creation of new
literature. Vice versa, and not less importantly, vocabulary, set phrases, and
syntactic patterns of Aramaic were taken over into Hebrew in the same period,
as the same books, Chronicles, Qohelet, and Esther attest.
Daniel 2:20-23,
a poetic inset composed ad hoc for the narrative in which it is found, may
illustrate. A translation of the Aramaic into late classical Hebrew, with
parallels in terms of phraseology and syntactic patterns noted, is offered here.
Loans and calques in both directions are evident.
The Prosody of Biblical Aramaic Verse
The scansion I
offer of Dan 2:20-23 differs from all previous inasmuch as 2:2 units are
consistently treated as prosodic equivalents of 3:3 units. Go here.
More generally, the scansion accords with a working hypothesis developed in the
course of research on ancient Hebrew verse.
As is true over the
corpus of ancient Hebrew verse, the typology of enjambment in the Aramaic verse
of the book of Daniel across 2:2 units is indistinguishable from that in
evidence across 3:2, 3:3, (2:2):2, and 3:(2:2) units (Dan 2:20a, 23a; 4:12a;
6:28a; 7:13b).
2:2, 3:2, and
3:3 units are the fundamental building blocks of ancient Aramaic verse, with (2:2):2,
(2:2):3, and 3:(2:2) units less common variants thereof. The proverbs of
Ahiqar, not just the Aramaic poetry of the book of Daniel, reflect these
patterns. Verse in ancient Aramaic
and verse in ancient Hebrew feature similar sets of prosodic regularities.
The bisection of
Dan 2:20b, 21a, 22a, and 23b will not encounter the favor of traditionalists. It
will not matter that there are indisputable examples of enjambed 2:2 lines (Ps
119:13; Lam 1:1b, 17c, 18c, 19b; 2:2b, 5c, 12b; 3:6, 13, 31; 4:5a, 13a-b, 14b,
18a). According to the conventional wisdom, a 4:(3:3) scansion of Dan 2:22
(thus NRSV, NJPSV, REB, NAB, NJB, and NIV) is preferable to a (2:2) (3:3)
scansion.
The unstated
assumption is that a short verset of two, three, or four syllables is
acceptable only if it contains a complete clause (e.g., Ps 4:8aα; 99:3b; 101:4bα). In this line of reasoning, syntax
trumps prosody. The short verset of Dan 2:22aα on my scansion, for example, is thereby ruled out.
But this has it
backwards. It is constitutive of prosody to trump syntax. The phenomenon of enjambment
is a case in point, and is far more common in ancient Hebrew verse than is
generally recognized.
According to
conventional scansions, Dan 2:20, 22, and 23a are (4:2):4 [or (5:2):4], 4:(3:3)
and (3:3):4 lines, respectively. But do such lines exist in the Hebrew verse of
the Tanakh? And if they don’t, what makes one think they do in the Aramaic
verse of the Tanakh?
Line Lengths in Psalm 119 and Lamentations 1-5
It is
instructive to work through the prosody of Ps 119. 22 x 8 = 176 acrostic lines
make up the poem. 5 beat lines dominate. 6 beat lines are also frequent. 7 beat
lines and 4 beat lines are infrequent but still well-attested. Exceptionally, the last
line of the poem contains 8 beats ((3:2):3). But 10 or 11 beat lines, 4:(3:3),
(3:3):4, or otherwise, are not attested.
The prosody of
Lam 1-5, where lineation is once again relatively certain, yields a similar picture.
5 beat lines predominate. 4, 6, and 7 beat lines are frequent. Lines with more than
7 beats are unattested.
8 and 9 beat
bipartite lines and 10 and 11 beat tripartite lines continue to be posited by
accomplished students of biblical Hebrew and Aramaic verse. But it is not
possible to point to such lines in acrostic poems whose lineation is nearly
certain. The existence of said lines lacks an empirical basis.
Structural Symmetries
The point of all
this? I thought you’d never ask. Once 10 and 11 beat lines are eliminated, the
structural symmetry of Dan 2:20-23 becomes evident. The unit’s halves, 5 lines,
11 versets each, mirror each other chiastically. In terms of the notation used
for the description of compositional figures, with letters standing for
strophes (=masoretic verses), the poetry of Dan 2:20-23 looks like this: A1B1:B2A2. Look again.
The 22 verset
poem has an onion-like structure. The outermost peel consists of v20a + the
last verset of v23; if pared more deeply, of vv20a and 23b-c; more deeply
still, of vv20 and 23. The core consists of vv21-22, in structural counterpoint
to the poem’s bipartition into equal halves.
Documentation
For a scansion
of Daniel 2:20-23, go here.
For a bilingual
Aramaic - English edition, go here.
For an
Aramaic - late classical Hebrew edition, go here.
For a printable version of this post, go here.
Robert Lowth, De sacra poesi Hebraeorum:
praelectiones academicae Oxonii habitae, subjicitur Metricae Harianae brevis
confutatio et oratio Crewiana (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1753; 1763, 1775;
repr. with introd. by David Reibel; Robert Lowth [1710-1787]: The Major Works;
London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1995); ed. Johannes David Michaelis, De
sacra poesi Hebraeorum . . . notas et
epimetra adjecit Ioannes David Michaelis (Göttingen: Pockwiz u. Barmeier,
1758-61; Göttingen: Ioan. Christ. Dieterich, 1770); Lectures on the Sacred
Poetry of the Hebrews: From the Latin of the late Robert Lowth, by G. Gregory;
to which are added the principal notes of Professor Michaelis and notes by the
translator and others (London: J. Johnson, 1787; repr. with introd. by
Vincent Freimarck and bibliogr. note by Bernhard Fabian, Hildesheim: Georg
Olms, 1969; repr. with introd. by David Reibel; Robert Lowth [1710-1787]: The
Major Works; London: Routledge / Thoemmes Press, 1995; repr. of the 4th Eng.
ed. [London: T. Tegg, 1839]; Whitefish MT: Kessinger, 2004).
the text is very good
Posted by: william | April 16, 2007 at 06:13 AM