THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS 107
as before, the fuller parallelism will be between
the first and third sections.
Nvyc tb ynqz | vmdy Crxl vbwy 10
Myqw vrgH | Mwxr lf rpf vlfh
Mlwvry tlvtb | Nwxr Crxl vdyrvh
10 They sat on the ground dumb—| the elders of Sion;
Lifted up dust on their head, | were girded with sack-
cloth;
They lowered to the ground their head—| the virgins of
Jerusalem.
Here in the second section we find subsectional
parallelism; each clause in it mentions one sign
of mourning and grief; parallel to each of these
clauses and to one another are the first clauses of
the first and third sections, but these sections
contain no subsectional parallelism : on the other
hand, the second parts of the first and third
sections are very strictly parallel to one another
(the elders of Sion || the virgins of Jerusalem). But
there is still further and in part rather subtle
verbal parallelism between the sections: note Crxl
(on (to) the ground) in the first and third sections ;
Mwxr and Nwxr (their head) in the second and third
respectively; and the antithesis vlfh (lifted up)
and vdyrvh (lowered) which is emphasised by the
parallelism in a way which it is impossible to
represent adequately in translation: what they
lift up is dust, what they cast down is their heads!
Very clearly, then, sectional parallelism is again
primary; but here it is reinforced by subsectional
parallelism in one of the three sections.