ELEMENTS OF HEBREW RHYTHM 151
In concluding the present chapter I will
consider one further possible, and even probable,
service which it appears to me that parallelism
may render in reducing the element of uncertainty
in determining the rhythm of particular lines.
In Anglo-Saxon, alliteration clearly distinguishes
three of the stressed syllables in a line, leav-
ing only the fourth outwardly undistinguished;
Hebrew has no such outward indication of this
all-important element in the rhythm; in par-
ticular all particles, all construct cases, and
some other types of words are rhythmically
ambiguous; in any given line they may be
stressed or they may not. What I suggest is
that parallel terms tended at least to receive the
same treatment in respect of stress or non-stress.
I will give one or two illustrations of the value
of this law if its probability be admitted. If we
take by itself the line (Isa. i. 10),
Mds ynycq hvhy rbd vfmw
Hear the word of Yahweh, ye judges of Sodom,
we may certainly be in doubt whether hvhy rbd
received one stress or two, and whether the whole
line was read with four stresses or five. Sievers
gives it but four, and thereby in its context, as
I believe, treats it wrongly. I suggest that rbd
(word) ought to receive the same metrical value
as its parallel term trvt (law) in the completely
and symmetrically parallel line or period that