On the Poetic Exposition — The Seventeenth Method
Of the Poetic explanation — which expounds the divine volumes in various kinds of verse — there are two kinds. 1 The one, consisting of verse only, is called the Verse (Carmineum) kind; which, in expounding the sacred volumes, was used among the Greeks by Apollinaris the Elder and Gregory Nazianzen, and among the Latins by Juvencus the presbyter and Arator the deacon. The other kind is, after the imitation of the works of Boethius On the Consolation of Philosophy and of Martianus Capella On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury, intermingled with variety of prose and verse, and for that reason called by most the Prose-and-Verse (Prosocarmineum) kind; 2 in which kind there prevailed most, among the Greeks, Eulalius bishop of Cynopolis, and among the Latins Williram, abbot of Marburg — each of whom elucidated the Song of Songs of Solomon with a graceful intermingling of prose and verse.
An Example of Verse Exposition, on the hundred-and-sixteenth Psalm
An ode of two cola and two strophes (dicolos distrophos), consisting of iambic senarii and dimeters.
OMNES
> ALL nations everywhere, with harmonious voice,
with one mouth, [lift] to the stars the praises of the best Father — praises drawn, perhaps, from inmost, chaste, and pious senses. But what praises will you especially sing, O pious nation of the sons of Abraham? — [you] deemed worthy, O wonder, beyond all other nations, with so great a favor of the Deity. What outpouring of the mercy of God is this? What greatness? how great its power? What bounty? — the Son JESUS sent down from the bosom of the eternal Father, who brought auspicious blessings to the auspicious lands, all evils being put to flight. He was not — no — forgetful of the faith once given, and of the oath [he swore], with which he had willingly bound himself to his servant, to David, after Abraham. To lie belongs to mortals; to lie is not [the way] of the one God. Sooner shall the earth, lifting itself, mount beyond the stars, and heaven fall down into the depths, than the least little stain could be sprinkled upon the truth of God. Nay, brighter than the golden light of the Sun, it shall remain for all ages.
An example of the Prose-and-Verse exposition is omitted for brevity’s sake.