158 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
which have hitherto mainly engaged our attention,
and then to consider to what extent different
rhythms may enter into one and the same poem.
This subdivision must be carried through by
applying a measure which, as I have pointed
out in the previous chapter (p. 150), is less
accurate than we could desire, and leaves us with
corresponding uncertainties which must not be
forgotten. Even when we may be certain of the
general class into which a particular distich may
fall we may remain uncertain of its exact measure-
ment; for example
fdy xl lxrWy
Nnvbth xl ymf
a distich which occurs in Isaiah i. 3, is certainly
a distich of equal lines (balancing rhythm) : but
whether each line contains three or only two
stressed words is, as we have already seen (p. 139),
in some measure uncertain.
Whether the unit in Hebrew poetry is the line
or the distich has been much discussed; regarded
from the standpoint of parallelism, it is obviously
the distich that is the unit; the single line in this
case is nothing; it is incapable of revealing its
character as a parallelism. On the other hand,
it is rhythmically just as easy to measure a single
line as to measure a distich ; and at times it is
necessary so to do: for, as there alternate with
distichs that consist of parallel lines distichs that