II. Metrical Forms
The problem of metrical forms and the prosody of the earliest Latin hymns, in general, is a phase of the same problem affecting Latin poetry as a whole. The subject is both complicated and obscure, entangled with that of Latin rhetorical prose style, the transition from the quantitative accent of ancient classical poetry to the stress accent of medieval and modern verse and with the origin of rhyme. It is a problem for specialists among whom opinions are now divergent. Toward a practical understanding of the metrical values of the hymns of Hilary, Prudentius, Ambrose and Fortunatus, the pragmatic test of what is singable may be applied. The ancient balanced rhythms of Semitic poetry as illustrated in the Hebrew psalms had been sung for generations. The metrical lyrics of ancient Greece were sung to an instrumental accompaniment as were the Latin lyrics of the Golden Age of Rome. These highly polished classical forms were for the elite. Of popular poetry which was sung in the period immediately preceding the appearance of the Latin hymn, very little is known. The early writers were experimenters. Hilary used classical meters with alterations, of which the trochaic tetrameter catalectic proved most acceptable.[10] It is illustrated in Adae carnis gloriosae and also in hymns by Prudentius and Fortunatus. Prudentius used a variety of meters in addition to the trochaic which proved adaptable in actual liturgical practice but by that time stress accent was beginning to obscure the original quantitative values. Ambrose used the unrhymed iambic dimeter, a simple and singable form which has been in vogue ever since, at first unrhymed after the original models and later rhymed. The popular trochaic meter familiarized by Hilary, Prudentius and Fortunatus, when transformed by stress accent and rhyme, is easily recognized both in Latin and the vernaculars. Fortunatus popularized the elegiac meter in hymns for a thousand years by demonstrating its use in Tempora florigero. Prior to the ninth century revival of hymnody, the Ambrosian hymn, considered as a metrical model, in comparison with all other existing models, dominates the field equally with its prestige as an expression of Christian theology and devotion.