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THE POETICAL FORMS OF BYZANTINE HYMNOGRAPHY 21
(Trpocro/zotov). All the stanzas of a kontakion have the same number of
syllables and the same metre. Acrostic and refrain are obligatory.
The kontakion is a poetical homily. Its content was taken from the
same sources as the early Byzantine sermons. Most of the early
kontakia are based on the lessons which were read during the Nativity,
Easter, and Pentecost cycles. At a later date kontakia for the feasts
of the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, Saints, and Martyrs and the
Fathers of the Church were added. Research into the origin of the
kontakion have shown that it derived from the three main forms of
Syriac poetry (see pp. 8-9). From the memrd, the festival homily, it
took its contents, from the madrasha and sogithd its poetical form and
its dramatic character. St. Romanus, the greatest of all Byzantine
hymnographers, is also the first Byzantine writer of kontakia^ He
grew up at Berytus (Beyrout) in Northern Phoenicia, where he took
deacon's orders, and came to Constantinople during the reign of the
Emperor Athanasius I (491-518). 2 The decisive impressions of his
youth must have come from the poems of St. Ephraem and his pupil,
Basil of Seleucia. Many of Romanus's kontakia are translations from
Ephraem, or are composed under his influence. 3 It has been said that
his stanzas are fragments of Ephraem's memre put into metre, and
that 'he thought in 4
Syriac and sang in Greek'.
of Romanus's
Such a statement, however, only explains the origins
poetry; it does not help us to understand his genius. If we compare,
for example, his kontakion on the Second Coming of Christ with that
5
of Ephraem on the same subject we shall find that Romanus uses
half as many words to describe the same situation as Ephraem had
done, and by his conciseness achieves a greater poetic effect. We
know that Byzantine ecclesiastical poetry was closely linked with the
demands of the liturgy and that the hymnographer had to express
himself within a given framework. If we take these restrictions into
account we shall come more and more to admire the achievement of
Romanus, whom Tillyard rightly compares with Pindar. 6 His most
famous poem is the Nativity kontakion, which begins:
1 Cf. the hymn in honour of the saint by Germanus in the Menaia, i (Rome, 1888),
p. 305.
2 The controversy as to whether Romanus lived during the reign of Athanasius I or
Athanasius II has now been conclusively settled in favour of the earlier date. Cf. G.
Camelli, Romano UMelode (Florence, 1930), pp. 11-22.
8 Cf. C. Emereau, St. phrem le Syrien (Paris, 1918).
4 Ibid., p. 104.
6 Cf. T. Wehofer, 'Untersuchungen zum Lied des Romanus auf die Wiederkunft des
Herrn', Sitzungsberichte d. k. Akademie d. Wissenschaften,phil. hist. KL, 154, 5 (Vienna,
1907), pp. 28-107.
6 H. J. W. Tillyard, Byzantine Music and Hymnography (London, 1923), p. 12.