HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

COMPARATIVE SLAVIC EPIC 419The principles of metrical and rhythmic structure in the dumy seemto be four:(1) The dumy are sung in stanzas of unequal length.(2) Lines within a stanza have 2, 3, or 4 stresses.(3) A line has either (6) 7-8 or 9-11(12) syllables.(4) Lines within a stanza may be grouped by number of stresses andnumber of syllables, together with rhyme.Here are some examples from the classic work by F. M. Kolessa: n(1) Гей, у святу неділеньку 3(2) stresses, 4 + 4 = 8(7) syllablesTo рано-пораненько,2 stresses, 3 + 4 = 7 syllables/Hey, on holy Sunday,Early, very early/(2) Гей, то не чорні хмари 4(3) stresses, 11(10) syllables,наступали, 5 (4) + 2 + 4He дробнї дощі накрапали, 3 stresses, 9 syllables, 3 + 2 + 4Гей то не сиві тумани й 4(3) stresses, 12(11) syllablesуставали, — 5(4) + 3 + 4Як три брати з турецької, 2 stresses, 7 syllables, 4 + 3Бусурменської, тяжкої неволі, 3 stresses, 9 syllables, 4 + 5Із города Озова утікали. З stresses, 11 syllables, 4 + 3 + 4/Hey, black clouds have not come,Nor has a light rain fallen,Hey, gray mists have not risen,But three brothers from the TurkishHard, infidel prison,From the city of Azov have escaped./In spite of this metrical variety, however, the number of epithets for"horse," which one might expect to increase in reflection of themetrical variety, remains about the same as in Russian and Bulgarian.There are three: dobryj ("good"), voronyj ("raven black"), andkozac'kyj ("Cossack"). In the duma about Hołota, for example,dobry] appears twice: 18To козакъ Голота, сердечный, добрымъконемъ гуляє ("Cossack Hołota, the wretched, is riding his goodhorse"; variant B, line 8), but otherwise the epithet in the text isvoronyj. In fact, in lines without a verb voronyj seems to be the rule.17F. M. Kolessa, Melodiji ukrajins'kyx narodnyx dum (Kiev, 1969), pp. 263-64.18The Ukrainian texts are quoted from Kateryna Hrusevs'ka, Ukrajins'ki narodnidumy, vol. 2 (Xarkiv and Kiev, 1931).