As to the form of this poem—we note the parallelism, similar to that of the old Hebrew songs: “To Sisera a prey of diverse colours, a prey of diverse colours of needlework, of diverse colours of needlework, on both sides” ([Judges v. 30]).[14]
The Song of Deborah, from which we have just quoted, is supposed to be the oldest passage in the Bible, and is a good specimen of ancient oriental poetry.
The songs quoted in Moses of Khorene are also examples of this poetry, and will therefore be welcome to scholars, as throwing light on this class of ancient literature.
The ancient Armenian form of verse has, doubtless, its own national peculiarities. One of its characteristics is that it consists of one main idea expressed in two or more sentences, regularly connected with one another. There are no complex sentences, only short simple ones, and the manner of expression is direct and definite, but, in order that they may not tire the ear by monotony, they are, by means of parallelism, systematically interwoven so as to form one consistent whole. Thus the different sentences become related to one leading thought. The words are carefully chosen and harmonious to the ear. Metaphor and allegory abound. In colour and splendour these songs might vie with any classical poem, and their existence is a proof that long before the Christian era the Armenians had a perfected poetical language, which, in its construction, imaginative force, brilliancy, and grammatical development, bears the impress of literary culture.
Most of the nouns and adjectives in this poem are in the diminutive form, which expresses endearment:—
| karmrik | = | reddish |
| achkunk | = | little eyes |
| egheknik | = | little reed |
| aregakunk | = | little suns |
| patanekik | = | little boy |
The adjectives used here do not qualify the nouns, but simply serve as epithets, or attributes, like the adjectives in the Homeric poems. The Armenian word dzirani,[15] used in this poem, does not always mean “red”; applied to a robe it means “red,” applied to a belt it means “variegated”; it may originally have had the sense of “pleasing” (cf. Russian krasni, which originally meant “beautiful,” but now denotes only “red-coloured”).
Another of these extant songs, belonging to the time before the Christian era, has, as its theme, the love story of King Artashes II., one of the greatest kings of the Arsacid dynasty. The former, as well as all the other stories we have mentioned, belong to the Haikazian dynasty, but the story of Artashes II. belongs to the Arsacid dynasty and is contained in the second book of Moses of Khorene, the contents of which are less legendary than those of the first book. When narrating the story of Artashes, the historian addresses himself to Sahak Bagratuni, by whose command his history was written, in these terms:—
“The doings of Artashes are known to thee, through the epical songs which are sung in the province of Goghtan; that is to say, his founding of Artaxata (Artashat),[16] his alliance by marriage with the royal house of the Alans, his sons and their descendants, the loves of Satenik with the Vishapazuns (progeny of dragons) who were of the race of Astyages; his wars with them, the overthrow of their dynasty, their slaughter, the burning of their palaces, the rivalries of the sons of Artashes, the intrigues of their wives, which further fomented the discord amongst them. Although these things are well known to thee through the epical songs, I will, nevertheless, narrate them again and will explain their allegorical meaning.”
Then Moses of Khorene gives, in detail, a prose account of the deeds of Artashes and his son Artavazd, as they are related in the epic of Artashes, quoting, in the course of his narrative, the songs given in this volume on pages 48 and 49.