Correct spacing of dagger in a verse of psalmody (and, possibly, of asterisks)

[MRoth1910]

In the liturgical books, the symbol † known as a dagger follows a colon or sometimes a comma. It is used to indicated the flex (Lat. flexa). In psalms where the first half is considered to be too long, the flex comes at the middle, and the chanters make the drop of a major second or minor third from the reciting tone of the mode, e.g. the modes for which the reciting tone of the mode is Do or Fa has a flex of a minor third (to avoid a half-step), those with reciting tones on La have a flex on Sol.

It is also used to mark the flex of a minor third in the chapter (capitulum), the short Scriptural passage sung at Vespers and at Compline. Further, it indicates a modulation in the collects (oratio) depending on the tone chosen.

Examples are taken from the 1949 Liber Usualis and the 1949 Liber Antiphonarius (reprinted in the 1950s) both available as a PDF.

Solesmes/Desclée is more generous with the spacing of colons and daggers in the LU but is consistent. They are very tight in the two-column format of the LA and fairly tight in the other text portions.

LaTeX is variable, because there is a lot of stretch. It is particularly bad with v. 4 of ps. 110. The answer to this TeXSE post explains some possible solutions. Not even so-called frenchspacing fixes this adequately, since there is still stretch associated with ~. Further, this could, in theory, apply also to * (used to mark similar modulations, including the mediant of the psalm, which has a distinct cadence in each of the 8 modes). But the problem is most evident with the † for some reason.




<img width="537" alt="Screenshot 2023-1

[MRoth1910]

It is indeed an issue with the asterisks as well.