ABSTRACT
Voice and Power, ed. R.J.Hayward & I.M.Lewis (ALC Supplement 3, 1996): 83-127.
1. Introduction
The aim of this study is to show how a system of metrical scansion interacts with a melodic-rhythmic system in the different kinds of Somali poetry. These two systems concur in fixing and suggesting to the poet the rules that govern how verse is to be properly composed and sung. In other words, it is claimed that, at least in this poetic tradition, music and metre work together and synchronize in the actual unity of the sound string, each of them with its own ways of functioning. The two are likely to be a single thing in the poet’s mind, as Gentili (1955) pointed out with reference to the ancient Greek poetry:
E‘assurdo credere che un poeta […] fosse costretto a compitare le brevi e le lunghe o […] a contare sulla punta delle dita il numero delle sillabe. In realtà, per un poeta antico il verso nasceva nella sua unità ritmica e tale ritmo egli sentiva nel vario alternarsi delle brevi e delle lunghe […] Tale unità ritmica trova una sua conferma nell’unione con la musica, poiché l’elemento prosodico assumeva la sua unità proprio […] nella veste musicale che il poeta adattava egli stesso al ritmo metrico.1 (p. 1)
* Research for this study has been carried out within the framework of the Project for the Development of the Somali Language funded by the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, as well as with a research grant of the Italian Ministry of Education (University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’: ‘Etnia e stato in Africa: cultura, lingua, religione’). The authors thank all the people who helped them, talo iyo taageer, in preparing this work: the late Giorgio R.Cardona, Diego Carpitella and Sheekh Maxamed Axmed Liibaan, as well as Aweys Maxamed Waasuge, Axmed Faarax Cali ‘Idaajaa’, Axmed Macallin Maxamed, Bogumil W. Andrzejewski, Xaaji ‘Balbaal’, Cabdalla Cumar Mansuur, Cabdinaasir Sheekh Maxamed, Caddow Jimcaale, Ciise Maxamed Siyaad, Deeq Aadan Diriye, Sheekh Jaamac Cumar Ciise, John J.Johnson, Maxamed Cabdi Maxamed ‘Gaandhi’, Annarita Puglielli and Xuseen Sheekh Axmed ‘Kaddare’. 1‘It is absurd to think that a poet…had to figure out the short and the long vowels or…to count on his fingertips the number of syllables. Indeed, for an ancient poet the line was born in its rhythmic unity and the rhythm was felt by him in the sequence of short and long vowels… This rhythmic unity is supported by its union with the music, because the prosodic element found its unity…in the musical format that the poet himself adapted to the metrical rhythm’.
