110 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
sectional parallelism is fundamental and frequent,
subsectional parallelism secondary and relatively
rare : in chapter iv. subsectional parallelism is
relatively more frequent, perhaps even consider-
ably more frequent than sectional parallelism,
though neither type is quite so unmistakably
primary or quite so persistent as the sectional
parallelism in chapter ii. Subsectional parallel-
ism occurs in nearly, if not quite, or even more
than, a half^1 of the sections in chapter iv. as corn-
pared with a bare fifth in chapter ii.; on the
other hand, less than half, perhaps scarcely a
third, of the sections are parallel to one another,^2
1 The sections in Lamentations iv. number 44, of which two (v. 15)
are through corruption very uncertain. Subsectional parallelism is
clearest in these 17 sections : 1 a (see below), 2 a, b, 3 a, b, 7 a, b, 8 a, b,
11 a, b, 12 a, 13 a, 16 b, 18 b, 19 b, 21 a. To these should be added the two
similarly constructed sections, 6 a, 9 a, perhaps also 5 a, b (antithetical
parallels), G b, 14 a, 15 a, 21 b, 22 a, b. Subsectional parallelism is at all
events sufficiently frequent to raise the question whether the text of
v. 1 is correct ; subsectional parallelism would indeed be perfect even
in the present text if we ventured to divide the section equally (cp.
R.V.) : but rhythm, as we shall see later, forbids this, and if the text
is sound Dr. Smith (Jerusalem, ii. 270) rightly arranges as follows :
How bedimmed is the gold, how changed
The best of the gold.
I suspect, however, that either (1) :.w' is a gloss (Aramaic ?) on evr,
or (2) that men should be omitted, leaving en: parallel to em as in
Job xxxi. 24. Then we have either
How bedimmed is the gold,
Even the best fine gold,
or
How bedimmed is the gold,
Changed the fine gold.
2 The most conspicuous sectional parallelisms will be found in vv.
4, 5, 8, 17, 22 : see also vv. 1, 7, 19, but in these latter verses, as also in
the antithetical sections of v. 3, the sectional parallelism is much less
conspicuous than the synonymous subsectional parallelism in one or,
in most of the verses, in both sections.