ELEMENTS OF HEBREW RHYTHM 143
stressed words we receive, I think, no very
helpful analogy from Assyrian.
The question, then, arises : Can we discover
a more accurate method of determining the
limits of what may accompany a stressed syllable?
It is the attempt to answer this question that
occupies in the main the attention of recent
theorisers on Hebrew metre, and it is in the
attempt to answer it that they diverge from one
another.
The popularity which for a time was enjoyed
by Bickell's^1 system has waned in favour of that
of Sievers, which has the advantage of being very
much more elaborately and systematically worked
out. I propose very briefly to summarise some
of the chief points in Sievers' system, premising
at the outset that if it could be held to be estab-
lished it would (1) greatly reduce, though not
entirely eliminate, lines of ambiguous measure-
ment; and (2) give for every line, regarded by
itself independently of its association with any
other line, a clear rhythmical definition.
In connexion with the present discussion the
two fundamental laws of Sievers' system can,
perhaps, best be stated thus: (1) the number
of unstressed syllables that may accompany a
1 Gustav Bickell, Metrices biblicae regulae exemplis illustralae (1879);
Carmina Veteris Testamenti metrice (1882); Die Die/dung der Hebrder
(1882). The English reader will find a useful summary of Bickell's
system in W. H. Cobb, A Criticism of Systems of Hebrew Metre, pp.
111-128.