Lamentations: Reading and recitation

 

Qinah de-mystified

The 3–2 qinah rhythm is vital to the first four chapters.

If you have ever recited nursery rhymes, or heard kids excitedly calling them out in the playground, then you already know how to do it. Here are some well-known examples and their respective rhythms. This first is in 4–3: in each couplet the first line has four strong beats ("Ma-", "Ma-", "quite", "-tra-"), and the second has three strong beats ("how", "gar-", "grow"):

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells,
and pretty maids all in a row.

rhythm (couplets): 4–3, 4–3

This second is in 4–4: in each couplet, both have four strong beats.

Hush little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird.
And if that mocking bird don't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

rhythm (couplets): 4–4, 4–4

The rhythm is maintained and the varying number of words simply slot naturally into place. But that said, don't be too rigid about it; give it natural fluidity.

Here are the opening verses from this rendering of Lamentations 3 in its characteristic 3–2 qinah rhythm:

Agonies: I am the man seared
by the rod of his wrath;
Away— me he drove, force-marched
in blackout, no light;
Against me, he turns his hand
from day-dawn to dusk;

rhythm (couplets): 3–2, 3–2, 3–2

And in the final chapter, where 3–2 qinah is largely replaced by 3–3, although not entirely so, a sense of rhythm is still entirely appropriate.

Lamentations, not Psalms

A superficial glance at the layout on the page might suggest that the poems of Lamentations are like the Psalms, with short lines set out as couplets.[1] But they are frequently quite different.

With the Psalms, most readers of Jewish and Christian background are very much aware of a parallelism governing a significant majority of the couplets.[2] Here is a typical, near-random example: the closing three couplets from Psalm 88, also a lament:

Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
 
All day they surge round like a flood;
from every side they encircle me.
 
Because of you friend and neighbour shun me;
my only friend is darkness.

—from Psalm 88 (NABRE)[3]

In the psalm example, observe how each couplet (verse) is self-contained and a complete sentence. Within the verse, observe how each half-verse could itself almost be regarded as a self-contained sentence (although expressed as two full clauses). Observe how a verse can be seen as standing alone from its neighbouring verses.

But the poetics of Lamentations can contrast significantly with this. The thought processes often do not fall neatly at half-lines or even within full couplets. This running-across of expected borders is "enjambment".

Awareness of this is useful for the reader, and vital for reciter and lector. For a much fuller exploration see Dobbs-Allsopp (2001a) and Dobbs-Allsopp (2001b).

Recurring theme words and phrases

Be alert to particular words that recur. A few examples:

1. ^ Of course some psalm verses, rather than having a couplet of two half-verse components instead have three. But for our boundary-comparative purposes, the principles remain applicable.
2. ^ For a thorough exploration of such parallelism, see Alter (2011), pp.1–28.
3. ^ In most Western translations, these verses are numbered 16–18. In NABRE, which follows the convention of numbering the Psalm's incipit as v.1, they are numbered 17–19.
4. ^ Dobbs-Allsopp (2001a), p.223.
5. ^ Dobbs-Allsopp (2001a), pp.238–239.