The marks of taste in the Hebrew Bible - a review of ornaments

First example: another verse about the tongue  

4 They have sharpened their tongues like a snake,
heat of a viper,
under their lips. Selah. (1-2-4-1)

ד שֽננ֣ו לשונם֮ כֽמו־נ֫ח֥ש
חמ֥ת עכש֑וב
ת֖חת שפת֣ימו סֽלה

There are two accents on the first word. On the first syllable, the silluq (שֽ) is explicit. On the second syllable, the reciting note moves to the fifth, B, using the accent munah (נ֣).

The second word contains one accent on the last syllable, the tsinnor, a turn leading into the next word. The tsinnor marks the stress and indicates the melisma (ם֮). 

The third and fourth words are joined by maqqef, and therefore are treated as one word. It contains three accents. The first, silluq. draws the reciting note down to the tonic, e. The word drawing down the recitation to the tonic would not have an accent since it is joined to the next word, but an emphasis will be heard from the music.

The second accent is ole (נ֫) followed by merkha, f#. These two together form the cadence on the supertonic.  We know this word from Genesis 3 (וְהַנָּחָשׁ֙) is accented on its last syllable, so it gets accented on both its syllables by the music here. This gives the performer some material to work with. 

The second line with its two words, moves the reciting note from the supertonic to a subdominant. These segments can be very short. 

As in the previous example, there are only accents under the text from this point on. You can sing the music here (Psalm 140, verse 4).

A second example to see some remaining accents.

There are not many that occur after the atnah. This one from Psalm 53 had two revia-mugrash -- I was surprised and checked it against the Aleppo codex. Only one there. There is never more than one in a verse.

ב א֘מ֤ר נב֣ל ב֭לבו א֣ין אלה֑ים
הֽ֝שח֗יתו והֽתע֥יבו ע֝ול א֣ין עֽשה־טֽוב

Word 1 - two syllables (sounds like charades) two accents -- so both syllables get stress, especially with the zarqa lengthening the first syllable. The mahpakh moves us to the high C, the sixth degree of the scale and the highest reciting pitch. (zarqa followed by mahpakh 'zar,C' is common, over 100 instances in the psalms).

Word 2 moves to the fifth (ב֣) on the munah, then on word 3 to the third degree of the scale on the tifha (ב֭), then back to the fifth on word 4 and to the rest note A on the last syllable of the fifth word.

Line 2 illustrates the ornaments. First word has three accents, the silluq moves the phrase to the tonic, then the revia-mugrash is sung relative to the tonic. This is not an infrequent occurrence. I found 12 instances in the current list of phrase forms that I posted here. Look for 'e ger-rev' with the find feature of your browser. The revia and geresh a syllable apart from each other still constitute the revia-mugrash, announcing the last phrase of the verse. But not all may be found this way since e or f# may separate the ger from the rev as in 'ger,e rev'. This finds another 13.

Word 2 appears to have more accents than it needs. The reciting pitch is already on e so there is no need to repeat it. But emphasis may be the issue. Then we have another geresh, (ע֝) on the third word of line two, then back to the dominant, B, munah, then an emphatic finish with both parts of the last lexical word emphasized.

A third example

א תפל֗ה לד֫ו֥ד
שמע֤ה יהו֨ה צ֗דק הקש֥יבה רנת֗י האז֥ינה תפלת֑י
ב֝ל֗א שפת֥י מרמֽה

Line 1 begins on e with a revia (ל֗) over the first word third consonant, followed by ole veyored as in example 1. Both of these are on the tonic e, so rising from e a fourth to A and back to e then to f#.

The section above from f# to A is one of the longest: seven words. The accents do not divide the text. The sense of the words divides the text. The accents say how to implement the decision. This is music, not a rigid decomposition of the text which is already grammatically clear. The first accent (ע֤ mahpach) moves the reciting note to C. The next accent above the text is qadma (ו֨). The revia (צ֗) may be followed by a breath. It is not a cadence, but it may invite a breath. Similarly the same accent on the taf. The tifha moves the reciting note to g, and the atnah to A -- these always behave the same way.

The final section has the revia-mugrash as in the second example followed by a descent to the merkha (f#) and then the silluq (tonic, e). 

This is from Psalm 17.

David Mitchell in his book, The Songs of Ascent, notes "I do not suggest that the following reconstructions are one hundred percent correct. Science proceeds by hypotheses, not certainties." (Chapter 13). I echo him when I say that the reconstructions of the psalms that I have presented in the last two months are not 100% perfect. Even the statistics I have provided are subject to change if there is new information on the correctness of the text. But the song is close and I think it would be recognized by an ancient musician.

Mitchell has a different implementation of the ole veyored. His makes it a fixed descending scale ending on the f#. This solves the problem of the ole occurring on a mahpakh, but it is possible that the mahpakh in these instances is just wrong. (I should check these in Aleppo!) It would not be difficult to make such an error as we have seen for the hundreds of variations in the WLC I have corrected from the earliest text we have.