Then, not to pursue the subject with a detail of which this Introduction will not admit, we find that by the beginning of the eighth century, verse, properly speaking (and that with scarcely an exception), had been discarded for ever from the hymns of the Eastern Church; those hymns, occupying a space beyond all comparison greater 35 than they do in the Latin, being written in measured prose. And now to explain the system.

The stanza which is to form the model of the succeeding stanzas,—the strophe, in fact,—is called the Hirmos, from its drawing others after it. The stanzas which are to follow it are called troparia, from their turning to it.

Let Ps. 119:13, be the Hirmos;—

Then verse 15 would be a troparion to it:—

So would 17:—

and Ps. 102:16:—

Let verse 44 be a Hirmos:

and 45 will be a troparion to it:—

These troparia are always divided for chanting by commas,—utterly irrespective of the sense. This separation into commatisms renders it very difficult to read them without practice. Take an example, with the corresponding effect in English:—

The perfection of troparia is in a Canon, of which I shall say more presently. I need not trouble the reader with the minute distinction between troparia and stichera; as a troparion follows a Hirmos, so a sticheron follows an homoion, and then becomes a prosomoion. There are also idiomela,—that is, stanzas which are their own models,—and an infinite variety of names expressive of the different kind of troparia.