Transcriber's Notes

Any changes made to the text to correct typographical errors are listed at [the end of the book].

The author makes extensive use of diacritics such as macron, breve and grave accent to indicate stress, length etc. In the original, these symbols often float over the text to show that they apply to the syllable, but in this e-book are morked on the first vowel of the syllable only.

Note that rare instances of simultaneous macron and breve diacritics over the same syllable have been retained. This may indicate that the syllable be interpreted as long or short.

In a few cases where sidenotes refer to new topics introduced within a long paragraph, an additional paragraph break has been added.

All footnotes have been renumbered [1] ... [181]. Because of the number and the length of some footnotes, all are presented at the end of the chapter or section to which they refer.

Non-roman script (e.g. Greek) has been rendered in Unicode, with a roman transliteration available with mouse-hover.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY FROM THE TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY. 3 vols. 8vo.

Vol. I. From the Origins to Spenser. 12s. 6d. net.
Vol. II. From Shakespeare to Crabbe. 18s. net.
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A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE RHYTHM. 8vo. 18s. net.

A HISTORY OF ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.

A HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.

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LIFE OF DRYDEN. Library Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. net. Pocket Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net.

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

HISTORICAL MANUAL
OF
ENGLISH PROSODY

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

HISTORICAL MANUAL
OF
ENGLISH PROSODY

BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY

M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.
HON. LL.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.; FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD; LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC
AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1919

COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1910
Reprinted 1914, 1919

[PREFACE]

The reception of the first two volumes of a larger work (since completed) on English Prosody suggested, to the author and to the publishers, that there might be room for a more compressed dealing with the subject, possessing more introductory character, and attempting the functions of a manual as well as those of a history. It did not, however, seem that the matter could be satisfactorily treated in extremely brief form, as a primer or elementary school-book. The subject is one not very well suited for elementary instruction; and in endeavouring to shape it for that use there is a particular danger of too positive and peremptory statement in reference to matters of the most contentious kind. Catechetical instruction has to be categorical; if you set hypotheses, or alternative systems, before young scholars, they are apt either to distrust the whole thing or to become hopelessly muddled. And the opposite danger—of unhesitating adoption of positive statements on doubtful points—must have been found to be only too real by any one who has had to do with education. Schoolboys cannot be too early, or too plentifully, or too variously supplied with good examples of verse; but they should be thoroughly familiar with the practice before they come to the principles.

To the Senior Forms of the higher Secondary Schools, on the other hand, and to students in those Universities which admit English literature as a subject, this function of it is quite suitable and well adapted, and it is for their use that this volume is planned (as well as for that of the general reader who may hardly feel inclined to tackle three large octavos). An effort will be made to include everything that is vital to a clear understanding of the subject; while opportunity will, it is hoped, be found for insertion of some information, both of a historical and of a practical kind, which did not seem so germane to the larger History. It has been a main object with me in preparing this book, while reducing prosodic theory to the necessary minimum, but keeping that, to "load every rift" with prosodic fact; and I could almost recommend the student to devote himself to the Contents and the Index, illustrated by the Glossary, all of which have been made exceptionally full, before attacking the text.

The work, like the larger one of which it is not so much an abstract as a parallel with a different purpose, cannot hope to content those who think that prosody should be, like mathematics or music, a science, immutable, peremptory, abstract in the other sense. It will not content those who think—in pursuance or independently of such an opinion—that it should discard appreciation of the actual poetry, on which, from my point of view, it is solely based. It will, from another point, leave dissatisfied those who decline the attempt to reduce this poetry to some general but elastic laws, and who concentrate themselves on the immediate musical or rhetorical values (as they seem to them) of individual poems, or passages, or even (as is not uncommon) lines. Nor will it provide, what some seem to desire, a tabular analysis of every verse-form in the language, for reasons explained in the proper place (v. inf. p. [336] note). But, from past experience, it seems that it may find some public ready for it; and it is perhaps not wholly fatuous to hope that it may help to create a larger.[1]

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
Edinburgh,
All Souls' Day,
1910.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Note to Second Edition. Christmas 1913.—The opportunity of this second edition[2] has been taken to read the text carefully, and to correct a certain number of errors of pen and press, connected more especially with division of feet and quantification of syllables. How difficult it is to avoid errors here, nobody who has not tried the matter on an extensive scale can well conceive. Few more substantial alterations have been found necessary; but I may mention here an addition to the evidence of distinct, if clumsy, anapæstic metre in the mid.-sixteenth century, which I had not noticed when writing this book, or my larger one. It is a translation of the 149th Psalm, contributed to the "Old Version" (1561-2) by John Pulleyne, Student of Christchurch, Archdeacon of Colchester, and Prebendary of St. Paul's. It may be found in the Parker Society's Select Poems, and begins:

Sing unto the Lord with hearty accord
A new joyful song;
His praises resound, in every ground
His saints all among.

[2] And of a third.—Bath, Sept. 1919.

[CONTENTS]

[BOOK I]
INTRODUCTORY AND DOGMATIC

[CHAPTER I]
INTRODUCTORY

Prosody, or the study of the constitution of verse, was, not so long ago, made familiar, in so far as it concerned Latin, to all persons educated above the very lowest degree, by the presence of a tractate on the subject as a conclusion to the Latin Grammar. The same persons were further obliged to a more than theoretical knowledge of it, in so far as it concerned that language, by the once universal, now (as some think) most unwisely disused habit of composing Latin verses. The great majority of English poets, from at least the sixteenth century, if not earlier, until far into the nineteenth, had actually composed such verses; and even more had learnt the rules of them, long before attempting in English the work which has given them their fame. It is sometimes held that this fact—which as a fact is undeniable—has had an undue influence on the way in which English prosody has been regarded; that it must have exercised an enormous influence on the way in which English poetry has been produced may be denied, but hardly by any one who really considers the fact itself, and who is capable of drawing an inference.

It was, however, a very considerable time before any attempt was regularly made to construct a similar scientific or artistic analysis for English verse itself. Although efforts were made early to adjust that verse to the complete forms of Latin—and of Greek, which is in some respects prosodically nearer than Latin to English,— although such attempts have been constantly repeated and are being continued now,—it has always been impossible for any intelligent person to make them without finding curious, sometimes rather indefinite, but extremely palpable differences and difficulties in the way. The differences especially have sometimes been exaggerated and more often mistaken, and it is partly owing to this fact that, up to the present moment, no authoritative body of doctrine on the subject of English prosody can be said to exist. It is believed by the present writer that such a body of doctrine ought to be and can be framed—with the constant proviso and warning that it will be doctrine subject, not to the practically invariable uniformity of Science, but to the wide variations of Art,—not to the absolute compulsion of the universal, but to the comparative freedom of the individual and particular. The inquiries and considerations upon which this doctrine is based will be found, at full, in the larger work referred to in the Preface. In the first Book, here, will be set forth the leading systems or principles which have actually underlain, and do underlie, the conflicting views and the discordant terminology of the subject, and this will be followed by perhaps the most valuable part, if any be valuable, of the whole—a series of selected passages, scanned and commented, from the very beginning to the very end of English poetry. In the second, a survey will be given of that actual history of the actual poetry which ought to be, but has very seldom been, the basis of every discussion on prosody. In the third a brief conspectus will be supplied of the actual opinions which have been held on this subject by those who have handled it in English. The fourth will give, in the first place, a Glossary of Terms, which appears to be very much needed; in the second, a list of poets who have specially influenced the course of prosody, with reasoned remarks on their connection with it; in the third, a selected list of important metres with their origins and affiliations; any further matter which may seem necessary following, with a short Bibliography to conclude. The object of the whole is not merely to inculcate what seems to the author to be the best if not the only adequate general system of English prosody, but to provide the student with ample materials for forming his own judgment on this difficult, long debated, often mistaken, but always, if duly handled, profitable and delectable matter.

[CHAPTER II]
SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE ACCENTUAL OR STRESS

Classical prosody uniform in theory.

The great difficulty attending the study of English prosody, and the cause of the fact that no book hitherto published can be said to possess actual authority on the subject, arises from the other fact that no general agreement exists, or ever has existed, on the root-principles of the matter.[3] Classical writers on metre, of whom we possess a tolerable stock, differed with each other on many minor points of opinion, and from each other in the ways in which they attacked the subject. But they were practically agreed that "quantity" (i.e. the difference of technical "time" in pronunciation of syllables) and "feet"—that is to say, certain regular mathematical combinations of "long" and "short" quantity—constituted metre. They had indeed accent—the later Greeks certainly and the Latins probably—which was independent of, and perhaps sometimes opposed to, quantity; but except in what we call the ante-classical times of Latin and the post-classical times of both Latin and Greek, it had nothing to do with metrical arrangement. They had different values of "long" and "short"; but these did not affect metre, nor did the fact that in both languages, but especially in Greek, a certain number of syllables were allowed to be "common"—that is to say, capable of taking the place of "long" or "short" alike. The central system of prosodic arrangement (till the flooding of the later Empire with "barbarians" of various nationality and as various intonation and modes of speech broke it down altogether) remained the same. "Longs" and "shorts" in the various combinations and permutations possible, up to three syllables most commonly, up to four in fewer cases, and possibly up to five in still fewer, made up lines which experiment discovered to be harmonious, and practice adopted as such. These lines were sometimes used continuously (with or without certain internal variations of feet, considered equivalent to each other), as in modern blank verse; sometimes arranged in batches corresponding more or less to each other, as in modern couplet or stanza poetry.

English not so.

On the other hand, though English prosodists may sometimes agree on details, translated into their different terminologies, the systems which lie at the root of these terminologies are almost irreconcilably different. Even the reduction of these systems to three types may excite protest, though it is believed that it can be made out without begging the question in favour of any one.

"Accent" and "stress."

The discord begins as early as possible; for there are some who would maintain that "accentual" systems and "stress" systems ought not to be identified, or even associated. It is quite true that the words are technically used[4] with less or more extensive and intensive meaning; but definitions of each are almost always driven to adopt the other, and in prosodic systems they are practically inseparable. The soundest distinction perhaps is that "accent" refers to the habitual stress laid on a syllable in ordinary pronunciation; "stress" to a syllable specially accented for this or that reason, logical, rhetorical, or prosodic purely.

English prosody as adjusted to them.

According to this system (or systems) English poetry consists of syllables—accented or unaccented, stressed or unstressed—arranged on principles which, whatever they may be in themselves, have no analogy to those of classical feet. According to the more reckless and thorough-going accentualists—the view is expressed, with all but its utmost crudity, in Coleridge's celebrated Preface to Christabel[5]—all you have got to do is to look to the accents. Cruder advocates still have said that "accents take the place of feet" (which is something like saying that points take the place of swords), or that unaccented syllables are "left to take care of themselves." It has also been contended that the number and the position of accents or stresses give a complete and sufficient scheme of the metre. And in some late forms of stress-prosody the regularity, actual or comparative, which used to be contended for by accentualists themselves, is entirely given up; lines in continuous and apparently identical arrangement may have two, three, four, five, or even more stresses. While yet others have gone farther still and deliberately proposed reading of verse as a prose paragraph, the natural stresses of which will give the rhythm at which the author aimed.[6] Some again would deny the existence of any normal form of staple lines like the heroic, distributing them in "bars" of "beats" which may vary almost indefinitely.

On the other hand, there are some accentualists who hardly differ, in more than terminology, from the upholders of a foot-and-quantity system. They think that there is no or little time-quantity in English; that an English "long" syllable is really an accented one only, and an English short syllable an unaccented. They would not neglect the unaccented syllables; but would keep them in batches similar to, if not actually homonymous with, feet. In fact the difference with them becomes, if not one of mere terminology, one chiefly on the previous question of the final constitution and causation of "long" and "short" syllables. Of these, and of a larger number who consciously or unconsciously approach nearer to, though they do not actually enter, the "go-as-you-please" prosody of the extreme stressmen, the majority of English prosodists has nearly always consisted. Gascoigne, our first writer on the subject, belonged to them, calling accent itself "emphasis," and applying the term "accent" only to the written or typographical symbols of it; while he laid great stress on its observance in verse. With those who adopt this system, and its terminology, the substitution of a trochee for an iamb in the heroic line is "inversion of accent," the raising or lowering of the usual pronounced value of a syllable, "wrenching of accent," and so on. And the principal argument which they advance in favour of their system against the foot-and-quantity scheme is the very large prevalence of "common" syllables in English—an undoubted fact; though the inference does not seem to follow.

Its difficulties

The mere use of the word "unaccented" for "short" and "accented" for "long" does no particular harm, though it seems to some clumsy, irrational, and not always strictly correct even from its own point of view, while it produces unnecessary difficulty in the case of feet, or "sections," with no accent in them—things which most certainly exist in English poetry. But the moment that advance is made upon this mere question of words and names, far more serious mischief arises. There can be no doubt that the insistence on strict accent, alternately placed, led directly to the monotonous and snip-snap verse of the eighteenth century. In some cases it leads, logically and necessarily, to denial of such feet as those just mentioned—a denial which flies straight in the face of fact. Although it does not necessarily involve, it most frequently leads also to, the forbidding, ignoring, or shuffling off of trisyllabic feet, which are the chief glory and the chief charm of English poetry, as substituted for dissyllabic. And, further still, it leads to the most extraordinary confusion of rhythms—accentualists very commonly, if not always, maintaining that, inasmuch as there are the same number of accented syllables, it does not matter whether you scan

Whēn | thĕ Brī|tĭsh wār|rĭŏr quēen |

iambically or

Whēn thĕ | Brītĭsh | wārrĭŏr | quēen

trochaically,

Īn thĕ hĕx|āmĕtĕr | rīsĕs thĕ | fōuntāin's | sīlvĕry̆ | cōlūmn

dactylically or

Īn | thĕ hĕxām|ĕtĕr rī|sĕs thĕ fōun|tāin's sīl|vĕry̆ cōl|ūmn

anapæstically.

Further still, and almost worst of all, it leads to the enormities of fancy stress above referred to, committed by people who decline to regard as "long" syllables not accented in ordinary pronunciation.

and insufficiencies.

But its greatest crime is its hopeless inadequacy, poverty, and "beggarly elementariness." At best the accentual prosodist, unless he is a quantitative one in disguise, confines himself to the mere skeleton of the lines, and neglects their delicately formed and softly coloured flesh and members. To leave unaccented syllables "as it were to take care of themselves" is to make prosody mere singsong or patter.

Finally, it may be observed that, in all accentual or stress prosodies which are not utterly loose and desultory, there is a tendency to multiply exceptions, provisos, minor classifications to suit particular cases, and the like, so that English prosody assumes the aspect, not of a combination of general order and individual freedom, but of a tangle of by-laws and partial regulations. Unnecessary when it is not mischievous, mischievous when it is strictly and logically carried out, the accentual system derives its only support from the fact above mentioned (the large number of common syllables to be found in English), from the actual existence of it in Old English before the language and the poetry had been modified by Romance admixture, and from an unscientific application of the true proposition that the classical and the English prosodies are in some respects radically different.

Examples of its application.

It will, however, of course be proper to give examples of the manner in which accentual (or stress) scansion is worked by its own partisans and exponents. Their common formula for the English heroic line in its normal aspect is 5^xa:[7]

What òft | was thòught, | but nè'er | so wèll | exprèst.

If they meet with a trisyllabic foot, as in

And ma|ny an am|orous, ma|ny a hu|morous lay,

they either admit two unaccented syllables between the accents, or suggest "slur" or synalœpha or "elision" ("man-yan"), this last especially taking place with the definite article "the" ("th'"). But this last process need not be insisted on by accentualists, though it must by the next class we shall come to.

It is common, if not universal, for accentual prosodists to hold that two accents must not come together, so that they are troubled by that double line of Milton's where the ending and beginning run—

Bòth stòod
Bòth tùrned,

They admit occasional "inversion of accent" (trochaic substitution)—especially at the opening of a verse,—as in the line which Milton begins with

Màker;

but, when they hold fast to their principles, dislike it much in other cases, as, for instance, in

fàlls to | the gròund.

And they complain when the accent which they think necessary falls, as they call it, on one of two weak syllables, as in

And when. |

This older and simpler school, however, represented by Johnson, has been largely supplemented by another, whose members use the term "stress" or ictus in preference to "accent," and to a greater or less extent give up the attempt to establish normality of line at all.

Its various sects and supporters.

Some of them[8] admit lines of four, three, or even two stresses, as, for instance—

His mìn|isters of vèn|geance and pursùit. |

Others[9] break it up into "bars" or "sections" which need not contain the same or any fixed number of "beats" or "stresses," while some again[10] seem to regard the stresses of a whole passage as supplying, like those of a prose paragraph, a sufficient rhythmical skeleton the flesh of which—the unaccented or unstressed part—is allowed to huddle itself on and shuffle itself along as it pleases.

This school has received large recent accessions; but even now the greater number of accentualists do little more than eschew the terms of quantity, and substitute for them those of accent, more or less consistently. Many of them even use the classical names and divisions of feet; and with these there need not, according to strict necessity, be any quarrel, since their error, if it be one, only affects the constitution of prosodic material before it is verse at all, and not the actual prosodic arrangement of verse as such.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Or, it may be added, on its terminology; whence it results that there is no subject on which it is so difficult to write without being constantly misunderstood. It is perhaps not surprising that some people almost deny the existence of English prosody itself, and decline at any rate to take it seriously; while others talk about it in ways which half justify the sceptics.

[4] It is inevitable, in dealing with this subject, that technicalities, historical and literary references, etc., should be plentifully employed. To explain them always in the text would mean endless and disgusting delay and repetition; to give notes of cross-reference in every case would bristle the lower part of the page unnecessarily and hideously. Not merely the Contents and Index, but the various Glossaries and Lists in the Fourth Book have been expressly arranged to supply explanation and assistance in the least troublesome and most compendious manner. But special references will be given when they seem absolutely necessary.

[5] See on this in [Book III].

[6] See the article in Glossary on "Musical and Rhetorical Arrangements of Verse," and [Rule 41], infra, p. [35].

[7] This formula seems due to Latham, the compiler of a well-known work on Language. The foot-division mark | has been sometimes adopted (by Guest) and defended (by Professor Skeat, who, however, does not personally employ it) as a substitute for the accent mark. For arguments against this which seem to the present writer strong, see H. E. P. i. 8, and iii. 276, 544-545.

[8] Of whom the most important by far is Mr. Bridges, though he has never, I think, reduced the number to two, or increased it above five. Others, however, have admitted eight!

[9] E.g. Mr. Thomson, Sir W. M'Cormick, M. Verrier.

[10] E.g. Mr. J. A. Symonds, Mr. Hewlett.

[CHAPTER III]
SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE SYLLABIC

History of the syllabic theory.

A strictly syllabic system of prosody has hardly at any time been a sufficient key, even in appearance, to English verse. But it has preserved a curious insistence of pretension, and the study of it is of great and informing prosodic interest. It is, of course, French in origin—French prosody, except in eccentric instances, has been from the first, and is to the present day, strictly syllabic. It is innocuous in so far as in the words "octosyllable," "decasyllable," "fourteener," and the like, the irreducible syllabic minimum (save by licence of certain metres) is conveniently indicated. In so early an example as Orm (v. inf.) we find it carried out exactly and literally. But the inherited spirit of Old English, surviving and resisting all changes and reinforcements of vocabulary, accent, and everything else, will have none of it. In the fifteener[11] itself; in its sequel and preserver, ballad measure; in octosyllabic couplet—not merely in the loose form of Genesis and Exodus, but to some extent even in the strict one of The Owl and the Nightingale; in almost all mixed modes, when once they have broken free from direct copying of French or Provençal, it is cast to the winds. It can only be introduced into Chaucer, as far as his heroic couplet is concerned, by perpetual violations of probability, document, and rhythm. Even in Gower, the principal representative of it, and one who probably did aim at it, there are some certain, and many probable, lapses from strict observance. But in the linguistic and phonetic changes of the fifteenth century, with the consequent decadence of original literary poetry, the principle of syllabic liberty degenerates into intolerable licence, and the doggerel which resulted, after triumphing or at least existing for some generations, provoked considerable reaction in practice and a still more considerable mistake in principle.

Wyatt, Surrey, and their successors in the middle of the century and the first half of Elizabeth's reign, are pretty strict syllabically; and it was from their practice, doubtless, that Gascoigne—one of the last of the group, but our first English preceptist in prosody—conceived the idea that English has but one foot, of two syllables. Spenser's practice in the Shepherd's Kalendar is not wholly in accordance with this; but even he came near to observing it later, and the early blank-verse writers were painfully scrupulous in this respect.

But it was inevitable that blank verse, and especially dramatic blank verse, should break through these restraints; and in the hands of Shakespeare it soon showed that the greatest English verse simply paid no attention at all to syllabic limitations; while lyric, though rather slower, was not so very slow to indulge itself to some extent, as it was tempted by "triple-timed" music. The excesses, however, of the decayed blank verse of the First Caroline period joined with those of the enjambed couplet, though these were not strictly syllabic, to throw liberty into discredit; and the growth and popularity of the strict closed couplet encouraged a fresh delusion—that English prosody ought to be syllabic. Dryden himself to some extent countenanced this, though he indemnified himself by the free use of the Alexandrine, or even of the fourteener, in decasyllabics. The example of Milton was for some time not imitated, and has even to this day been misunderstood. About the time of Dryden's own death, in the temporary decadence of the poetic spirit, syllabic prosody made a bold bid for absolute rule.

In the year 1702 Edward Bysshe, publishing[12] the first detailed and positive manual of English prosody, laid it down, without qualification or apology, that "the structure of our verses, whether blank or rhyming, consists in a certain number of syllables; not in feet composed of long or short syllables, as the verses of the Greeks and Romans." And although all Bysshe's details, which, as will be seen below, were rigidly arranged on these principles—so that he made no distinction between verse of triple time (though he grudgingly and almost tacitly admitted it) and verse of double, as such,—were not adopted by others, his doctrine was always (save in a very few instances to be duly noticed later) implicitly, and often explicitly, the doctrine of the eighteenth century. Nor has this ever lost a certain measure of support; while it is very curious that the few foreign students of English prosody who have arisen in late years are usually inclined to it.

One difficulty in it, however, could never escape its most peremptory devotees; and a shift for meeting it must have been devised at the same time as the doctrine. It was all very well to lay down that English verse must consist of a certain number of syllables; but it could escape no one who had ever read a volume or even a few pages of English poetry, that it did consist of a very uncertain number of them. The problem was, therefore, how to get rid of the surplus where it existed. It was met by recourse to that very classical prosody which was in other respects being denied, and by the adoption of ruthless "elision" or "crushing out" of the supposed superfluities. This involved not merely elision proper—the vanishing or metrical ignoring of a vowel at the end of a word before a vowel (or an h) at the beginning of another, "th('/e) Almighty," "t('/o) admire." Application of a similar process to the interior of words like "vi('/o)let," "di('/a)mond," was inculcated, and in fact insisted on; and even where consonants preceded and followed a vowel of the easily slurrable kind, as in "watery," the suppression of the e and sometimes even of other vowels—"del('/i)cate"—was prescribed.

Its results.

There may possibly be two opinions (though it seems strange that there should be) on the æsthetic results of this proceeding. To the present writer they seem utterly hideous; while the admission of the full syllables seems melodious and satisfying. It may also be pointed out that there is a very tell-tale character about the fact that not a few prosodists who defend "elision" in principle defend it only as a metrical fiction, and even lay down positively that the elided syllables are always to be pronounced.[13] But it is far less matter of opinion—if it is even matter of opinion at all—first, that this process of mangling and monotonising English poetry is unnecessary; and, secondly, that it is inconsistent with the historic development of the language and the literature. That it is unnecessary will, it is hoped, be demonstrated in the next of these Introductory Chapters; and that it is unhistorical the whole body of the historical survey to follow will show. And another objection of great importance can be made good at once and here. The rigid observance of the syllabic system produces, and cannot but produce, an intolerable monotony—a monotony which has made the favourite verse of the eighteenth century positively (if perhaps excessively and unreasonably) loathsome to succeeding generations. It would be condemned by this, if it had no other fault; while it has, as a matter of fact, hardly a virtue. It was tried once for all by Orm, and failed once for all, in the beginning of modern English, and it has never been tried in practice or maintained in theory since without validating inferior poetry and discouraging good.[14]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] For the almost necessary precedence, owing to the inflexional e, of the fourteener by this, and for expansion and explanation of other historic facts mentioned in this chapter, see Scanned Conspectus and [Books II]. and [III].

[12] See [Bibliography] and [Book III].

[13] This, it may be pointed out, is in flat contradiction to the older doctrine of, for instance, Dryden, that no vowel can be cut out before another in scansion which is not so in pronunciation.

[14] Examples here can hardly be needed. At any rate, one (Shenstone's, v. inf., own) may suffice:

The loose wall tottering o'er the trembling shade,

Cautions.

Here syllabic prosody would pronounce, and in strictness spell, "tott'ring."—This is perhaps as good a place as any to make some remarks on the connection of syllables with English prosody. In that prosody there are no extrametrical syllables, except at the end of lines, and (much more doubtfully) at the cæsura, which is a sort of end. Every syllable that occurs elsewhere must be part of, or constitute, a foot; and it is for this reason that the "Rules" following begin with feet, not syllables. It is practically impossible, in many, if not in most cases, to tell the prosodic value of an English syllable, or an English word, till you see it in actual verse.—Again, although there are, of course, innumerable instances where a foot coincides with a word, the composition of the foot out of syllables belonging to different words, as in

The thun|der of | the trum|pets of | the night,

or

To set|tle the | success|ion of | the state,

is usually more effective.—And, lastly, although there have, at different times, been strange prejudices against the use of monosyllables and of polysyllables, these prejudices are, in both cases, wholly unreasonable.

[CHAPTER IV]
SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE FOOT

General if not always consistent use of the term "foot."

Although the accentual and the syllabic systems—sometimes separate, but oftener combined—have, on the whole, dominated English preceptist prosody almost from the time when it first began to be formally studied, there has, until very recently, been a constant tendency to blend with these, if not the full acceptance, at any rate a certain borrowing, of the terminology of a third system—the foot-and-quantity one, so well known in the classical prosodies. Not before Bysshe (c. 1700) do you find any positive denial of "feet." Gascoigne (c. 1570) talks of them; Milton speaks of "committing short and long"; Dr. Johnson, though using a strict accent-and-syllable scheme, admits (whether with absolute accuracy or not does not matter) that "our heroic verse is derived from the iambic." And in more modern times, from Mitford downwards, arguments against the applicability of the terms in English have not unfrequently been found consistent with an occasional, if not a regular, employment of them.

In fact, nothing but a curious suspicion, as of something cabalistical in them, can prevent their use, or the use of some much more clumsy and inconvenient equivalents—bars, beats, sections, what not;[15] for that use is based on the most unalterable of all things, except the laws of thought, the laws of mathematics. Everybody, whatsoever his prosodic sect, admits that verse consists of alternations of two values—some would say of more than two, but that only complicates the application of an unchanged argument. Now the possible combinations of two different things, in successive numerical units of two, three, four, etc., are not arbitrary, but naturally fixed; and the names of feet—iambic, trochaic, dactylic, etc.—are merely tickets for these combinations.

Particular objections to its systematic use.

The reasons of the objection have been various, and are perhaps not always fully stated, or even fully appreciated, by those who advance them. It is most common perhaps now (though it was not so formerly) to find the objection itself lodged thus—that the so-called English iambs, anapæsts, etc., are different things from the feet so called in Greek or Latin. This is sufficiently met by the reply that they are naturally so, the languages being different, and that all that is necessary is that the English foot should stand to English prosody as the Latin or Greek foot does to Latin or Greek, that is to say, as the necessary and constituent middle stage between the syllable and the line. But a less vague and, in appearance at least, more solid objection is that the Latin and the Greek foot were constituted out of definite "quantities" attaching to definite syllables, and that there is "no syllabic quantity in English," though there may be vowel quantity. And this objection is generally, if not always, based on or backed by a further one, that "quantity" depends directly on time of pronunciation; while this again is supported, still further back, by elaborate discussions of accent and quantity,[16] by denials that accent can constitute quantity, and by learned expatiations in quest of proof that Greeks and Romans scanned their verses as they did not pronounce them—that there was a sort of amicable pitched battle, always going on, between quantity and accent.

"Quantity" in English.

Now it can be easily shown that, even if these contentions as to classical verse be accepted (and some of them are very doubtful), they supply no sort of bar to the application of the foot system, with such quantity as it requires, to English. It is quite true that the proportion of syllables of absolutely fixed quantity—that is fixed capacity of filling up what corresponds to the long or short places of a classical verse—is, in English, very small. There are some which the ear discovers by the awkwardness of the sound when they are forced into a "short" place. So also there are some which—by the coincidence of vowel quality, position, and absence of accent—it is practically impossible to put into a "long" place, such as the second syllable of "Deity." Nor are what are called "long vowel sounds"—the sounds of "rīte," "fāte," "bēat," "Ēurope," "ōmen," "āwkward," etc.—always sufficient to make a syllable inflexibly long; though they may be sometimes. Again, the extremest "shortness" of vowel sound, as in "and" or "if," will not prevent such syllables from being indubitably long in certain values and collocations.

The "common" syllable.

In other words, that peculiarity of being "common"—that is to say, of being capable of holding either position—which was far from unknown in the classical languages, is very much more prevalent in English. It would be quite false to say that every syllable in English is common; but it is scarcely at all false to say that almost every English monosyllable is, and an extremely large proportion of others.

The methods and movements by which this commonness is turned into length or shortness for the purposes of the poet are obvious enough, and in practice undeniable; though the processes of professional phonetics sometimes tend to obscure or even to deny them. Every well-educated and well-bred Englishman, who has been accustomed to read poetry and utter speech carefully, knows that when he emphasises a syllable like "and," "if," "the," etc., it becomes what the Germans would call versfähig—capable of performing its metrical duty—in the long position; that when he does not, it is not so capable. Every one knows in practice, though it may be denied in theory, that similar lengthening[17] follows the doubling of a consonant after a short vowel, or the placing of a group of consonants of different kinds after it—the vowel-sound running, as it were, under the penthouse of consonants till it emerges. Extreme loudness and sharpness would have the same effect in conversation, but, unless very obviously suggested by sense, would escape notice in silent reading. Not very seldom, the mere art of the poet will get weight enough on a short syllable to fit it for its place as "long," or conjure away from a long one length enough to enable it to act as "short."

At any rate, it is with these two values, and with syllables endowed with them by custom, incidental effect, place, sense, the poet's sleight of hand, or otherwise, that the English poet deals; and has dealt, ever since a period impossible to nail down with exactness to year or decade, but beginning, perhaps, early in the twelfth century and perfecting itself in the thirteenth and later. And impartial examination of the whole facts from that period shows that he deals with them on a system, in early times no doubt almost or quite unconsciously adopted, but perfectly recognisable. In still earlier or "Old" English verse this system is not discernible at all; in the earliest period of "Middle" English it is discernible, struggling to get itself into shape. Later, with advances and relapses, it perfects itself absolutely. Its principles are as follows:—

Intermediate rules of arrangement.

Every English verse consists of a certain number of feet, made up of long and short syllables, each of which is of equal consequence in the general composition of the line.

The correspondence of the foot arrangements between different lines constitutes the link between them, and determines their general character.

Some interim rules of feet (expanded in note).

But this correspondence need not be limited to repetition of feet composed of a fixed and identical number of syllables in the same order; on the contrary, the best verse admits of large substitution of feet of different syllabic length, provided—(1) that these are equal or nearly equal in prosodic value to those for which they are substituted; (2) that the substituted feet go rhythmically well with those next to which they are placed.[18]

A fuller list of observed rules for English verse generally will be found in the next chapter, but between the two a set of remarks, specially on the foot, may be extracted from the larger History, vol. i. pp. 82-84.

Every English verse which has disengaged itself from the versicle[1] is composed, and all verses that are disengaging themselves therefrom show a nisus towards being composed, of feet of one, two, or three syllables.

The foot of one syllable is always long, strong, stressed, accented, what-not.[19]

The foot of two syllables usually consists of one long and one short syllable, and though it is not essential that either should come first, the short precedes rather more commonly.

The foot of three syllables never has more than one long syllable in it, and that syllable, save in the most exceptional rhythms, is always the first or the third. In modern poetry, by no means usually, but not seldom, it has no long syllable at all.

The foot of one syllable is practically not found except

a, In the first place of a line.

b, In the last place of it.

c, At a strong cæsura or break, it being almost invariably necessary that the voice should rest on it long enough to supply the missing companion to make up the equivalent of a "time and a half" at least.

d, In very exceptional cases where the same trick of the voice is used apart from strict cæsura.

The foot of two syllables and that of three may, subject to the rules below, be found anywhere.

But:

These feet of two and three syllables may be very freely substituted for each other.

There is a certain metrical and rhythmical norm of the line which must not be confused by too frequent substitutions.

In no case, or in hardly any case,[20] must such combinations be put together so that a juxtaposition of more than three short syllables results.

But, for the purpose of this present book, illustration and example are of much more value than abstract exposition; and to them we shall now turn.

Here, for instance, is a line from Tennyson's "Brook":

Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail.

The different systems applied to a single verse of Tennyson's,

Now the system which regards syllabic precision first of all, with a minor glance at accent, but rejects "feet," surveys this line and pronounces it passable with the elision

Twinkled th' innumerable ear and tail,

but rather shakes its head at the absence of accent, or the slight and weak accent, in "innumerable," and the "inversion" of accent in "twìnkled."

The system which looks at accent first of all pronounces that there are only four proper accents [stresses] here:

Twìnkled the innùmerable èar and tàil.

Both these systems, moreover—the syllabic, as far as it recognises accent; the accentual, of necessity,—regard "twinkled" as the admittance (pardonable, censurable, or quite condemnable, according to individual theory) of "wrenched accent," "inverted stress," or something of the kind—as a thing abnormal and licentious.

The foot system simply scans it—

Twīnklĕd | thĕ ĭnnū|mĕrā|blĕ ēar | ănd tāil;

regarding "twinkled" as a trochee substituted in full right for an iamb, and "the innu-" as an anapæst in like case; "merā" as raised, by a liberty not out of accordance with the actual derivation, to a sufficiently long quantity for its position, and the other two feet as pure iambs.

and their application examined.

Now let us examine these three views.

In the first place, the bare syllabic view (which, it is fair to say, is almost obsolete, save among foreigners, though in consistency it ought to find defenders at home) takes no account of any special quality in the line at all. It is turned out to sample; the knife is applied at "th'" to fit specification; and there you are. It differs only from Southey's favourite heroic ejaculation

Aballiboozabanganorribo!

in being less "pure."

The syllabic-plus-accentual view passes it; but with certain reservations. "Twinkled" is an "aberration," a "licence" perhaps (in some views certainly), a more or even less venial sin, while "-āble" with a in a stressed or accented place is a case for more head-shaking still. The line is saved; yet so as by fire.

So is it under the looser stress-accentual system, but by a fire more devouring still. According to this latter, all rhythmical similarity with its companion five-stress lines is lost on the one hand, and on the other a jumble, with difficulty readable and absolutely heterogeneous, is created in the line itself. Your first rhythmical mouthful is "twink-," then you gabble over "led the innū-" till you rest on this last; then you repeat the process (as soon as you have breath enough) with "-merable ear," and finally you reach "and tail." But you never find your fifth stress, and instead of continuous blank verse you make the context a sort of clumsy Pindaric.[21]

Even if this last description be regarded as exaggerated, it will remain a sober fact that, in all these handlings, either the beauty of the line is obscured altogether, or it is smuggled off as a "licence," or it is converted into something individual, separated from its neighbours, and possessing no kinship to them.

Yet the line, though not "a wonder and a wild desire," is a good one; and (therein differing from their eighteenth-century ancestors) the syllabists and accentualists would mostly nowadays allow this, though their principles have to submit it to privilegia and allowances to make it out.

The foot arrangement makes no difficulty, needs no privilegium, and necessarily applies none. The line is at once recognised by the ear as a good line and correspondent to its neighbours, which, as a body, and also at once when a few have been read, informed that ear that they were five-foot lines of iambic basis. Therefore it will lend itself to foot-arrangement on that norm. The five feet may be iambs, trochees, anapæsts, spondees, tribrachs, and perhaps (this is a question of ear) dactyls and pyrrhics. These may be substituted for each other as the ear shall dictate, provided that the general iambic base is not overthrown or unduly obscured.

Further, these feet are composed of long and short syllables, the length and shortness of which is determined to some extent by ordinary pronunciation, but subject to various modifying influences of position and juxtaposition. Under those laws to which all its companions are equally and inevitably subject, mutatis mutandis, it makes itself out as above:

Twīnklĕd | thĕ ĭnnū|mĕrā|blĕ ēar | ănd tāil—

trochee, anapæst, iamb, iamb, iamb. The justification of ā in "āble" has already been partly given; it may be added that in the actual pronunciation of the word by good speakers there is a "secondary accent" (as they call it) on the syllable.

Here there is no straining, no "private bill" legislation, no separating of the line from its fellows, only a reasonable Reign of Law with reasonable easements.

Application further to his "Hollyhock" song.

Let us now take a more complicated instance, also from Tennyson. In that poet's first volume there was a "Song" which, unlike most of its fellows, remained practically unaltered amid the great changes which he introduced later. It has, I believe, always been a special favourite with those who have been most in sympathy with his poetry. But, nearly twenty years after its first appearance, it was described by no ill-qualified judge (an admirer of Tennyson on the whole) in the words given in the note:[22] and I believe it had been similarly objected to earlier. Now what were the lines that excited this cry of agonised indignation? They are as follows:—

A spirit haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave in the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

Now it is not very difficult to perceive the defects of this extremely beautiful thing in the eyes of a syllabic-accentualist, as this critic (whether knowing it or not) probably was.

The syllabists have always, by a perhaps natural though perhaps also irrational extension of their arithmetical prepossession, disliked lines of irregular length on the page. Bysshe would have barred stanzas; a very few years before Tennyson's book, Crowe, then Public Orator at Oxford, had protested against the exquisite line-adjustments of the seventeenth century. To the pure accentualists the thing might seem an unholy jumble, accented irregularly, irregularly arranged in number, seemingly observing different rhythms in different parts.

Now see how it looks under the foot system:

A spi|rit haunts | the year's | last hours
Dwelling | amid | these yel|lowing bowers:
To himself | he talks;
For at e|ventide, list|ening ear|nestly,
At his work | you may hear | him sob | and sigh
In the walks;
Earth|ward he bow|eth the hea|vy stalks
Of the moul|dering flowers:
Hea|vily hangs | the broad | sunflower
O|ver its grave | in the earth | so chilly;
Hea|vily hangs | the hol|lyhock,
Hea|vily hangs | the ti|ger-lily—

the feet being sometimes, at the beginning of the lines, monosyllabic, and of course of one long syllable only (Ēarth-|, Hēa-|, Ō-|); sometimes dissyllabic, iambic mainly, but occasionally at least semi-spondaic—

Ă spīr|ĭt hāunts | thĕ yēar's | lā̆st hōurs;

often trisyllabic, and then always anapæstic—

Fŏr ăt ē|vĕntĭde līst|ĕnĭng ēarn|ĕstlȳ̆.

Even so early in the present book this should need little comment; but it may be the better for some. It is an instance of substitution carried out boldly, but unerringly; so that, iamb and anapæst being the coin of interchange and equivalence, the rhythm is now iambic, now anapæstic chiefly, the two being not muddled, but fluctuant—a prosodic part-song. And the foot system brings this out straightforwardly and on its general principles, with no beggings or assumptions whatever for the particular instance. Moreover, the structure of the piece may be paralleled freely from the songs in Shakespeare's plays.[23]

Such application possible always and everywhere.

It is indeed sometimes said that such methods of scansion as these may apply very well to nineteenth-century poets, but that they are out of place in regard to older ones. This is demonstrably false. The method applies alike, and in like measure obviates all difficulties, in examples of the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It is as applicable to the early and mostly anonymous romancers and song-writers as to Tennyson, it accommodates Shakespeare as well as Browning. To Milton as to Shelley, to Dryden and Pope as to the most celebrated of our modern experimenters, say to Miss Christina Rossetti or Mr. Swinburne, it "fits like a glove." The rules in [the next chapter], and the subjoined examples fully scanned in [Chapter VI.], will show its application as a beginning; the whole contents of this volume must give the fuller illustration and confirmation.[24]

FOOTNOTES:

[15] The most recent, perhaps, and the most unfortunate competitor is "stress-unit"—for there are most certainly feet (i.e. constitutive divisions of lines) which include no stress at all.

[16] A full account of these would occupy a book bigger than the larger History. Among the latest and most curious attempts on the subject is one to mark off certain metrical rhythms as "accentual," certain others as "quantitative." This (which partly results from the superfluous anxiety to discover and isolate the sources of length and shortness) makes something very like a chimera or a hotch-potch of English verse.

[17] In metrical quantity, not in vowel sound.

[18] Of Anglo-Saxon and very early Middle English poetry. See Scanned Conspectus and [Book II].

[19] Except, to speak paradoxically, when it is nothing at all. The pause-foot or half-foot, the "equivalent of silence," is by no means an impossible or unknown thing in English poetry, as, for instance, in Lady Macbeth's line, I. v. 41—

Under | my bat|tlements. | ʌ Come, | you spirits,

where | spĭrīts, | though not actually impossible, would spoil the line in one way, and "come," as a monosyllabic foot, in another.

[20] The exceptions, and probably the only ones, are to be found, if anywhere, in some modern blank verse, where two tribrachs, or a tribrach and an iamb or anapæst, succeed each other.

[21] It is difficult to see how this effect can be avoided by those who think that accents or stresses, governing prosody, vary in Milton from eight to three.

[22] Having already called it "an odious piece of pedantry," the critic (Blackwood's Magazine, April 1849) adds: "What metre, Greek or Roman, Russian or Chinese, it was intended to imitate we have no care to inquire: the man was writing English and had no justifiable pretence for torturing our ears with verse like this."

[23] Such as "Under the Greenwood Tree."

[24] For cautions and additions, as well as explanations, see [Glossary], especially under "Foot," "Stress-unit," "Quantity," etc.

[CHAPTER V]
RULES OF THE FOOT SYSTEM

§ A. Feet

(These Rules are not imperative or compulsory precepts, but observed inductions from the practice of English poets. He that can break them with success, let him.)

Feet composed of long and short syllables.

1. English poetry, from the first constitution of literary Middle English to the present day, can best be scanned by a system of feet, or groups of syllables in two different values, which may be called for convenience long ( ̄ ) and short ( ̆ ).

Not all combinations actual.

2. The nature of these groups of syllables is determined by the usual mathematical laws of permutation; but some of them appear more frequently than others in English poetry, and some hardly occur at all.

Differences from "classical" feet.

3. Although, in the symbols of their constitution, these feet resemble those of the classical prosodies, it does not follow that they are identical with them, except mathematically,[25] the nature of the languages being different; and, in particular, their powers of combining in metre are far from being identical, so that combinations of feet which are successful in Greek and Latin need by no means be successful in English. Success is indeed almost limited to instances where the metrical constituents are restricted to iambs ( ̆ ̄ ), anapæsts ( ̆ ̆ ̄ ), and trochees ( ̄ ̆ ), with the spondee ( ̄ ̄ ) as an occasional ingredient.

The three usual kinds—iamb, trochee, anapæst.

4. The iamb ( ̆ ̄ ), the trochee ( ̄ ̆ ), and the anapæst ( ̆ ̆ ̄ ) are by far the commonest English feet; in fact, the great bulk of English poetry is composed of them.

The spondee.

5. The spondee ( ̄ ̄ ) is not so unusual as has sometimes been thought; but owing to the commonness of most syllables, especially in thesis, it may often be passed as an iamb, and sometimes as a trochee.

The dactyl.

6. The dactyl ( ̄ ̆ ̆ ), on the other hand, though observable enough in separate English words, does not seem to compound happily in English, its use being almost limited to that of a substitute for the trochee. Used in continuity, either singly or with other feet, it has a tendency, especially in lines of some length, to rearrange itself into anapæsts with anacrusis. In very short lines, however, this "tilt" has not always time to develop itself.

The pyrrhic.

7. The pyrrhic ( ̆ ̆ ) may occur in English, but is rarely wanted (see note above on spondee).

The tribrach.

8. The tribrach ( ̆ ̆ ̆ ), however, has become not unusual.

Others.

9. Other combinations (for names see [Glossary]) than these are certainly rare, and are perhaps never wanted in English verse, though they are plentiful in prose. (See [Rule 41] and [Glossary].)

§ B. Constitution of Feet

Quality or "quantity" in feet.

10. The quality, or contrast of quality, called "quantity," which fits English syllables for their places as long or short in a foot, is not uniform or constant.

Not necessarily "time,"

11. It does not necessarily depend on the amount of time taken to pronounce the syllable; though there is probably a tendency to lengthen or shorten this time according to the prosodic length or shortness required.

nor vowel "quantity."

12. It does not wholly depend on the usual quantity[26] of the vowel sound in the syllable; for long-sounding vowels are not very seldom shortened, and short-sounding ones are constantly made long.

Accumulated consonants,

13. An accumulation of consonants after the vowel will lengthen it prosodically, but need not necessarily do so.

or rhetorical stress,

14. Strong rhetorical stress will almost always lengthen if required.

or place in verse will quantify.

15. The place in verse, if cunningly managed by the poet, will lengthen or shorten.

Commonness of monosyllables.

16. All monosyllables are common, the articles being, however, least susceptible of lengthening, and the indefinite perhaps hardly at all.

§ C. Equivalence and Substitution

Substitution of equivalent feet.

17. The most important law of English prosody is that which permits and directs the interchange of certain of these feet with others, or, in technical language, the substitution of equivalent feet.

Its two laws.

18. This process of substitution is governed by two laws: one in a manner a priori, the other the result of experience only.

Confusion of base must be avoided.

19. Substitution must not take place in a batch of lines, or even (with rare exceptions) in a single line, to such an extent that the base of the metre can be mistaken.

(Of which the ear must judge.)

20. Even short of this result of confusion the ear must decide whether the substitution is allowable.

Certain substitutions are not eligible.

21. As a result of experience we find that the feet most suitable—if not alone suitable—as substitutes for the iamb—the commonest foot-staple—are the trochee, the anapæst, and the tribrach; that the dactyl substitutes well, if not too freely used, for the trochee.[27] These equivalences are reciprocal.

§ D. Pause

Variation of pause.

22. Next to equivalence, the most important and valuable engine in the constitution of English verses is the variation of the middle or internal pause.

Practically at discretion.

23. Except in very long lines—which always tend to pause themselves either at the middle or at two places more or less equidistant—there is no reason why the pause of an English line should not be at any syllable from the first to the penultimate, and none why it should or should not occur at the end of a line, couplet, or even stanza—though in the last-named case rather special reasons are required for its omission. Not every line need necessarily have any pause at all.

Blank verse specially dependent on pause.

24. The effect of blank verse depends more upon pause-variation than upon anything else; and by this variation, accompanied by stop or overrun ("enjambment") at the end of the line, verse-paragraphs are constituted, which can contain verse-clauses or sentences, in like manner brought into existence by pauses.

§ E. Line-Combination

Simple or complex.

25. Lines, composed as above of feet, can be used in English either continuously on the same or equivalent patterns, or in batches of two or more.

Rhymes necessary to couplet.

26. The batches of two almost necessarily require rhyme to indicate and isolate them, especially if the individual lines are of the same length. Other batches [stanzas] might, as far as any a priori objection goes, consist of unrhymed lines, symmetrically correspondent, or irregular [Pindaric].

Few instances of successful unrhymed stanza.

27. It is, however, found in practice, despite the examples of Campion, Collins, and one or two others, that rhymeless batching or stanza-making is very seldom successful.[28]

Unevenness of line in length.

28. There is neither a priori objection nor a posteriori inconvenience to be urged against the construction of stanzas or batches in lines of very uneven length.

Stanzas to be judged by the ear.

29. Every stanza-scheme must undergo, and is finally to be judged by, the test of the ear, and that only.

Origin of commonest line-combinations.

30. The commonest and oldest line-combinations—octosyllabic couplet, "common" or "ballad" measure, "long" and "short" measure, etc.—in some cases demonstrably, in all probably, result from the breaking up of the old long line ("fifteener" or "fourteener"), which itself came from the metricalising of the O.E. double stave.

§ F. Rhyme

Rhyme natural in English.

31. It is natural to English poetry—i.e. Middle and Modern English, or English poetry proper—to rhyme; and, except in the case of blank verse, no unrhymed measure for the last seven centuries has ever produced large quantities of uniformly satisfactory quality.

It must be "full,"

32. Rhyme in English must be "full," i.e. consonantal (on the vowel and following consonant or consonants), not merely assonantal (on the vowel only). Assonance by itself is insufficient.

and not identical.

33. It should not, according to modern usage, be identical—that is to say, the rhyming syllables should not consist of exactly the same vowels and consonants. But exceptions to this may be found in good poets, especially when the words are not the same.

General rule as to it.

34. Good rhyme has necessarily varied, at different times, with pronunciation; but a certain rough rule may be seen prevailing not uncommonly, that vowels in rhyme may take the value which they have in words other than those actually employed.[29]

Alliteration.

35. What is sometimes called "head-rhyme" (i.e. "alliteration") has now no place in English as rhyme at all, nor does it constitute either metre or stanza; but it is a permissible, and often a very considerable, ornament to verse.

Single, etc., rhyme.

36. Rhyme is either single (on the last syllable only), double (on the two last), or triple (on the three last). Beyond three the effect would be burlesque, and this is hard to keep out of triple rhyme, and even sometimes seems to menace the double.

Fullness of sound.

37. In serious poetry the fuller in sound the single rhyme is the better.

Internal rhyme permissible,

38. Rhyme is usually at the end of the line; but it may be "internal"; that is to say, syllables at one or even more than one place within the line may rhyme to the syllable at the end or to each other, and syllables within one line may rhyme to those at corresponding places within another.

but sometimes dangerous.

39. But this has a dangerous tendency to break the lines up.

§ G. Miscellaneous

Vowel-music.

40. The effect of English poetry at all times, but especially for the last hundred years, has been largely dependent on Vowel-music. This is by no means limited to the practice of what used to be called "making the sound suit the sense," though the two sometimes coincide. Vowel-music, not without occasional assistance from consonants, establishes a sort of accompaniment to the intelligible poetry—a prosodic setting.

"Fingering."

41. In the management of this, as of rhyme, pause, enjambment, and even the selection and juxtaposition of feet themselves, the poet often, if not as a rule in the best examples, uses particular sleights of fingering and execution parallel to those of the musical composer and performer. The results of this may appear to constitute verse-sections different from the feet. But these, however, never supersede feet, and are always resolvable into them; nor do they ever supply criteria for anything except the individual line or passage. They stand to prosody proper very much as delivery or elocution does to rhetoric. The conveniences of this "fingering," or poetic elocution, as well as sense and other things, may sometimes bring about alternative scansions, but all these connect themselves with and are obedient to the general foot system.[30]

Confusion of rhythms intolerable.

42. Despite this possibility of alternative scansion, and the other and commoner possibility of substitution of individual feet, iambic and trochaic, dactylic and anapæstic, metre or rhythm remain entirely distinct. Any system which regards these as merely different names for the same thing is self-condemned as disregarding the evidence, or rather verdict, of the ear.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] See above, Rule 2. It should be hardly necessary to remark that the explanations and exemplifications of these rules are to be furnished by the whole book, and that the Glossary in particular should be in constant use.

[26] E.g. "fāte" or "fāst" as opposed to "făt"; "mēet" to "dĕter"; "rīte" to "fĭt"; "ōmen" to "ŏtter"; "dūpe" to "bŭt."

[27] The combination of dactyl and trochee in English, however, will not produce the same effect as the combination of dactyl and spondee in Latin or Greek.

[28] Rules 26 and 27 do not apply to unmetrical verse, such as the old alliterative couplet-line, or the rhythmed prose-verse of Ossian, Blake, and Whitman.

[29] Thus Dryden rhymes "traveller" to "star," giving the er the value it has in "clerk."

[30] For elucidation and example see below, in [Glossary], as above noted, p. [8]. The "sections" referred to are not those of Guest.

[CHAPTER VI]
CONTINUOUS ILLUSTRATIONS OF ENGLISH SCANSION ACCORDING TO THE FOOT SYSTEM

I. Old English Period
Scansion only dimly visible.

No better examples can be taken for this than two already used by Dr. Sievers—the close of the Phœnix with its illuminative Latin admixture, and a bit of Beowulf (205 ff.)(dotted foot division added in first case):

Háfað ¦ us alýfed ¦ lucis | auctor
Þœt we mó¦tun hér ¦ meru |eri
ȝóddædum be¦ȝiétan ¦ gaudia in | coelo
Pǽr we ¦ mótun ¦ maxima | regna.

Hǽfde se ȝoda || Géata téoda
cémpan ȝecórene || þara þe ne cénóste
findan míhte || fíftener súm
súndwudu sóhte || sécȝ wísade
láȝucræftig món || lándȝemýrcu.

In these the general trochaic run and the corresponding tendency to dactylic substitution, which are so evident in the Latin, as it were muffle themselves in the English; and the contrast, so strikingly brought out in the mixed passage, is not really less evident in the pure Anglo-Saxon one. The muffling is the result, partly of the imperfect substitution, or rather the actual presence of syllables not digested into the metre; partly of the overbearing middle pause, which, suggesting another in each section, chops the whole up into disconnected grunts or spasmodic phrases.

II. Late Old English with Nisus towards Metre
("Grave" Poem. Guest's text, spelling, and accentuation; the usual marks for the latter being substituted for his dividing bars, and foot division added in dots.)

Thé wes ¦ bóld ge¦býld || er ¦ thú i¦bóren ¦ wére,
Thé wes ¦ mólde i¦mynt || er ¦ thú of ¦ móder ¦ cóme,
Ác hit ¦ nés no i¦díht ¦|| né theo ¦ deópnes i¦méten,
Nés gyt i¦lóced || hu ¦ lóng hit the ¦ wére.

Here an immense advance is made. The rhythm is still trochaic, though it is by no means certain that it does not show symptoms of iambicisation. It is far more well marked; and one of the means of the marking is that the "ditch in the middle"—the formal pause,—though no doubt technically and even rhetorically existing, is overrun by the suggested feet as long as the trochee is kept. But if this pause holds its place it suggests iambic scansion—

The | wes bold | gebyld;

and something like the whole future of English poetry lies in the suggestion. Do not omit to notice the metrical assistance given by the epanaphora, or repetition of the same word and phrases in the same place, and by the imperfect and irregular assonances emphasising the divisions.

III. Transition Period
Metre struggling to assert itself in a New Way.
Part of the verses of St. Godric.

Sainte ¦ Mari¦e Vir¦gine
Moder Je¦su Cris¦tes Na¦zarene
Onfang ¦ schild ¦ help thin ¦ Godric,
Onfang ¦ bring he ¦ gelich ¦ mit the ¦ in God¦es ric.

A distinct effort at iambic stanza, such as that of the great Ambrosian hymn, Veni Redemptor gentium.

It is not surprising if the experimenter stumbles, if the old trochaic rhythm is sometimes in his head, and if, in the last verse, he either overruns or divides and makes a quintet. The struggle towards feet—and new feet—is there, and rhyme, if imperfect, is there also.

IV. Early Middle English Period
Attempt at merely Syllabic Uniformity with Unbroken Iambic Run and no Rhyme.
Orm.

And nu | icc wil|le shæ|wenn yuw
summ-del | withth God|ess hellp|e
Off thatt | Judiss|kenn follk|ess lac
thatt Drih|htin wass | full cwem|e.

The moral of this (whether it be written as above in eights and sevens or continuously as "fifteeners") is unmistakable, as stated before: the writer, for all his scrupulous indication of short vowels, seems to care no more than if he were a modern Frenchman for syllabic quantity, or even for accent. He will have his fifteen syllables, his pause at the eighth, and his sing-song run of seven dissyllabic batches and a feminine ending. But, will he nill he, he impresses—with whatever sing-song effect and whatever merciless iteration—the iambic beat throughout his whole enormous work.

V. Early Middle English Period
Conflict or Indecision between Accentual Rhythm and Metrical Scheme.
Layamon.

1. {Þa an|swære|de Vor|tiger—
{of ælc | an vu|ele he | wes wær.

2. {Nulle ¦ ich heom ¦ belauen ||
{bi mine ¦ quike live.

3. {For Hen|gest is | hider | icumen,
{He is | mi fa|der and ich | his sune.

4. {And ich ¦ habbe ¦ to leof-monne ||
{his dohter ¦ Rowenne.

These four couplets (continuous in the original) exhibit perfectly the process which was going on. (2) is a rather shapeless example of the old scarcely metrical Anglo-Saxon line with a roughly trochaic rhythm; and (4) is not very different. But (3) is a not quite successful, though recognisable, attempt at a rhymed (it is actually assonanced) iambic dimeter or octosyllabic couplet. And (1) is this couplet complete at all points in rhythm, metre, and rhyme—capable, in fact, of being exactly quantified and rendered exactly into modern English, all but the dropped final e:

Thĕn ān|swĕrēd|[ĕ] Vōr|tĭger
ŏf īlk | ăn ē|vĭl hē | wăs wāre.

VI. Early Middle English Period
The Appearance and Development of the "Fourteener."

The exact origin[31] of the "fourteener," "septenar" (as the Germans call it), "long Alexandrine" (as it was very improperly termed in England for a time), "seven-foot" or "seven-accent" line—to give its various designations—is a matter of conjecture. The "fifteener" of Orm with the redundant syllable lopped off; a variation with iambic or "rising stress" rhythm substituted for trochaic or falling, and a syllable added in the popular Latin metre of

Meum est propositum in taberna mori;

with other things; most probably of all, a shortened metrification of the old long line, to represent the frequent inequality of its halves better than the octosyllabic couplet—have been suggested. It holds, however, such an important place in English prosody from the early thirteenth to the late sixteenth century, and its resolution into the ballad couplet or "common measure" is of so much greater importance still, that it can hardly have too much attention.

The extraordinarily prosaic and "stumping" cadence of the Ormulum perhaps obscures the connection, especially as this rigid syllabisation makes trisyllabic feet impossible. But the true rhythm appears, though still with a redundant syllable, in the famous Moral Ode, the older versions of which are dated before Orm. The oldest, as it is supposed to be, of these shows the form in full existence—

Ich em | nu al|der thene | ich wes | a win|tre and | a la|re.

But the youngest—

Ich | am el|der than | ich wes | a win|ter and eke | on lo|re—

gives a priceless improvement; for even if "nu" has dropped out, the resulting monosyllabic foot is quite rhythmical, the trisyllabic "-ter and eke" is unmistakable, and the life and spirit that it gives to the verse equally so.

In the course of the thirteenth century the form develops immensely. As a continuous one, it furnishes the staple of the Chronicle and Saints' Lives, attributed—the former certainly and the latter probably in at least some cases—to Robert of Gloucester. As thus in Lear's complaint:

Mid yox|ing and | mid gret | wop || þas | began | ys mone
Alas! | alas! | þe luþ | or wate | that fyl|est me | þos one:
Þat | þus | clene | me bryngst | adoun || wyder | schal I | be broȝht?
For more | sorwe | yt doþ | me when || it co|meth in | my thoȝht.
.   .   .   .   .   .   .
Le|ve doȝ|ter Cor|deille, || to sþo|e þou seid|est me
Þat as muche | as ych | hadde y | was worþ | pei y | ne lev|ed the.

But before long it shows, though it may be still written on, an evident tendency to break up into ballad measure, as in the (also thirteenth-century) Judas poem:

Hit wes upon a scere-Thursday
That ure Laverd aros,
Ful milde were the wordes
He spec to Judas:
"Judas, thou most to Jursalem
Oure mete for to bugge,
Thritti platen of selver
Thou bere upo thi rugge.

VII. Early Middle English Period
The Plain and Equivalenced Octosyllable.

We have seen how, in Layamon, the regular rhymed octosyllabic couplet or iambic dimeter ("four-stress line," etc.) shows itself, either as a deliberate alternative to the old long line, or as a half-unconscious result of the endeavour to adjust it to the new metrical tendencies of the language. And we saw, also, that its examples in Layamon himself vary from absolute normality to different stages of licence or incompleteness. Before long, however, we find two varieties establishing themselves, with more or less distinct and definite contrast. The first, which seems to keep French or Latin examples more or less strictly before it, is exemplified in The Owl and the Nightingale, and scans as follows:

Wi nul|tu singe | an oth|er theode,
War hit | is much|ele mo|re neode?
Thu nea|ver ne | singst in | Irlonde,
Ne thu | ne cumest | nogt in | Scotlonde:
Hwi nul|tu fa|re to Nor|eweie?[32]
And sing|en men | of Gal|eweie?
Thar | beoth men | that lut|el kunne
Of songe | that is | bineothe | the sunne.

Here, it will be observed, there is practically no licence except a few doubtful e's, and that of omitting one syllable and making the line "acephalous" iambic or catalectic trochaic. This form was followed largely, and, from Chaucer and Gower onwards, by most poets, except Spenser, till the time of Chatterton, Blake, and Coleridge in Christabel.

Side by side with it, however, a form embodying the special characteristic of the new English prosody— equivalent substitution—exhibits itself in full force in the mid-thirteenth-century Genesis and Exodus, as well as in other miscellaneous poems and in the romances. Here are specimens from Genesis and Exodus, 2367-2376:

Josep | gaf ilc | here twin|ne srud,
Benia|min most | he ma|de prud;
Fif we|den best | bar Ben|iamin
Thre hun|dred plates | of sil|ver fin,
Al|so fele | o|there | thor-til,
He bad | ben in | is fa|deres wil,
And x | asses | with se|mes fest;
Of all | Egyp|tes welth|e best
Gaf he | is brethe|re, with her|te blithe,
And bad | hem ra | pen hem hom | ward swithe.

And from Richard Cœur de Lion, 3261-3268:

Nay quod | Kyng Rich|ard, be God | my lord,
Ne schal | I ne|vyr with him | acord!
Ne hadde ne|vyr ben | lost A|cres toun
Ne had|de ben | through hys | tresoun.
Yiff he yil|de again | my fad|erys tresour
And Jeru|salem | with gret | honour,
Thenne | my wrath|e I hym | forgive
And ne|vyr ellys | whyl that | I live.

Here, it will be observed, the foot of three syllables—generally, if not always, an anapæst—and even, it would seem, that of one sometimes, are freely substituted for that of two, adding immensely to the variety, spirit, and freedom of the line. The first "ne hadde" is perhaps run together.

VIII. Early Middle English Period
The Romance-Six or "Rime Couée."

At an uncertain period in the thirteenth century this makes its appearance—no doubt directly imitated from the French, but probably also in part a derivative of the application of metrical tendency to the aboriginal line-couplet. Its French name[33] is not, to our eyes, appropriate —one would rather call it "waisted" or "waisted-and-tailed rhyme"; and as it is very largely (in fact, with the plain couplet predominantly) used in the English romances, "romance-six" as opposed to "ballad-four" seems a good name for it. It sometimes, however, extends to three, four, or even six sets of two eights and a six, and is found both plain and equivalenced, as thus:

The brid|des sing|e, it is | no nay,
The spar|hauk and | the pap|ejay,
that joy|e it was | to here.
The thrus|telcok made eek | his lay,
The wo|de dowv|e upon | the spray
She sang | ful loud|e and clere.

(Chaucer, Sir Thopas.)

As soon|e as the em|peroure yil|dyd the gast,
A prowd|e gar|son came | in haste,
Sir Syn|agote | hight he—
And broght | an hun|dred hel|mes bright
Of har|dy men | that cowd|e wel fight
Of felde | wolde ne|ver oon flee.

(Le Bone Florence of Rome, 778-783.)

The plain form, as Chaucer, of malice prepense, showed in the above, is particularly liable to sing-song effect.

IX. Early Middle English Period
Miscellaneous Stanzas.

(a) A very considerable number of these were introduced, sometimes no doubt by direct imitation of French or (as in the case of the "Burns-metre,"[34]) Provençal originals, sometimes by the ingenuity of the individual poet, working on the plastic material of the blended language, according to the new metrical foot-system. They all scan easily by this, as may be seen in a stanza of Tristrem, one of the Harleian Lyrics, and a "Burns stanza" from the York Plays; while anapæstic substitution, amounting to something like "triple time" as a whole, appears in the Hampolian extract.

The king | had a douh|ter dere,
That mai|den Y|sonde hight,
That gle | was lef | to here
And romaun|ce to rede | aright.
Sir Tram|tris hir | gan lere,
Tho, | with al | his might,
What al|le poin|tès were
To se | the sothe |in sight,
To say,
In Yr|lond nas | no knight,
With Y|sonde | durst play.

(Sir Tristrem, 1255-63.)

(Three-foot iambic with single-foot "bob." All final e's sounded or elided. One monosyllabic, and two or three trisyllabic, substitutions.)

Bytuen|e Mershe | ant A|veril
when spray bigin|neth to springe,
The lut|el foul | hath hi|re wyl
on hy|re lud | to synge;
Ich lib|be in ^| love-|longinge
For sem | lokest | of al|le thynge,
He may | me ^| blis|se bringe,
icham | in hire | baundoun.
An hen|dy hap | ichab|be y-hent,
Ichot | from hevene | it is | me sent,
From alle | wymmen | mi love | is lent
ant lyht | on A|lysoun.

(Alison, Harleian MS. p. 27, ed. Wright.)

(From the other stanzas it appears that the middle quatrain should consist of three eights and a six, and that something has dropped—supplied now by carets. Otherwise the scheme is clear.)

Fro thaym | is lost[e] | both[e] game | and glee.
He bad|de that they | schuld mais|ters be
Over all[e] kenn[e] thing, | outy-taen | a tree
He taught | them to be
And ther-|to went[e] | both she | and he
Agagne | his wille.

("York" Plays, vi. § 2.)

(The final e's are beginning to be neglected, and the whole is probably in strict iambics here, though vacillation between four- and five-foot lines is not absolutely impossible. But there is trisyllabic substitution elsewhere, though not very much. It may be remembered that there is little of it in Burns's own examples of this metre. Closer still to his is the following):

Eve. Sethyn[35] it | was so | me knyth | it sore,
Bot syth|en that wo|man witte|lles ware,
Mans mais|trie | should have | been more
Agayns | the gilte.

Adam. Nay at | my speech|e would thou ne|ver spare
That has | us spilte.

(Ibid. § 24.)

(b)

My tru|est trea|sure so trai|torly ta|ken,
So bit|terly bound|en with by|tand band|es,
How soon | of thy ser|vants wast thou | forsa|ken
And loathe|ly for my | life hurled | with hand|es

(Horstmann's Hampole, i. 72.)

(Probably, when first written, the ultimate e's of the even lines were sounded; but even this is not certain, and the superiority of the shortening would soon have struck the ear.)

(c) More elaborate stanza from the Drama:

Myght|ful God | veray, || Ma|ker of all | that is
Thre per|sons without|en nay, || oone God | in end|les blis,
Thou maid|è both night | and day, || beest, fowle | and fish,
All crea|tures that | lif may || wrought | thou at | thy wish,
As thou | wel myght:
The sun, | the moyn|è, ve|rament
Thou maid|è: [and] | the fir|mament,
The star|rès al|so full | fervent
To shyn|e thou maid|e ful bright.

("Townley" Plays, iii. p. 23, E.E.T.S.)

X. Early Middle English Period
Appearance of the Decasyllable.

The idea that the new metres in English were invariably direct copies of those already existing in French (or Latin) seems to be decisively negatived by the fact that the decasyllabic line—the staple, not indeed in couplet but in long batches or tirades, of the earlier French chansons de geste—makes a rare appearance in English verse before the late fourteenth century. But it does appear, thereby, on the other hand, negativing the notion that Chaucer "introduced" it, and suggesting that it was, in part at least, a genuine experiment—not in imitation, but in really independent development, of the possibilities of English metre. Here are scanned examples of different periods.

(a) Uncertain in intention, but assuming distinct couplet cadence:

Cristes | milde | moder | seynte | marie,
Mines | liues | leome | mi leou|e lefdi,
To the | ich buwe | and mi|ne kneon | ich beie,
And al | min heor|te blod | to the | ich offrie.

(Orison of Our Lady (c. 1200).)

(b) Expansion of octosyllable in single line:

And nu|tes amig|deles | thoron|ne numen.

(Genesis and Exodus, 3840 (c. 1250).)

(c) In couplet:

And swore | by Je|su that | made moon | and star
Agenst | the Sara|cens he | should learn | to war.

(Richard Cœur de Lion, 2435-36 (before 1325?).)

(d) Overflow of octosyllable into decasyllable; probably, in the first place, from the equivalenced lines lending themselves to another run:

The bugh|es er | the ar|mes with | the handes,
And the | legges, | with the | fete | that standes.

(In Hampole's Prick of Conscience, 680, 681
(before 1350), with scores of others.)

XI. Later Middle English Period
The Alliterative Revival—Pure.

The examples of this revival (see [Book II].) cannot, of course, in their nature, be strictly scanned. But it is important to bring out the change of rhythm as compared with the older examples (v. sup. p. [37]).

(To prevent confusion with positive metrical scansion, I have made the scanning bars dotted, and have doubled the foot-division line for the middle pause in the first extract.)

Hit bifel ¦ in that fo¦rest there fast ¦ by-side,
Ther woned ¦ a wel old cherl |¦| that was ¦ a couherde.

(William of Palerne.)

(Notice that the nisus towards anapæstic cadence overruns the break both in the metre and, as at "-glent," "stor," "-port" below, in the half line.)

Wende, wor¦thelych wyght ¦ vus won¦ez to seche,
Dryf ouer ¦ this dymme wa¦ter if thou ¦ druye findez,
Bryng bod¦worde to bot ¦ blysse ¦ to vus alle.

(Cleanness.)

Thenne ho gef ¦ hym god-day ¦ and wyth a¦glent laghed,
And as ho stod ¦ ho stonyed hym ¦ with ful ¦ stor wordes,
"Now he that spedes ¦ uche spech ¦ this dis¦port yelde,
Bot that ye ¦ be Gaw¦ayn hit gotz ¦ in mynde."

(Gawain and the Green Knight.)

XII. Later Middle English Period
The Alliterative Revival—Mixed.

The metrical additions, on the other hand (see [Book II].), and those poems which, while employing alliteration, subject it to metrical schemes, scan perfectly, as:

Quen thay | hade play|ed in halle,
As long|e as her wyll|e hom last,
To cham|bre he con | hym calle
And to | the chem|ne thay past.
.   .   .   .   .   .   .
"A' mon | how may | thou slepe,
This mor|ning es | so clere?"
He watz | in droup|ing depe
Bot thenne | he con | hir here.

("Wheels" of Gawain and the Green Knight.)

Fro spot | my spyryt | ther sprang | in space,
My bo|dy on balk|e ther bod | in sweven,
My gost|e is gon | in God|es grace,
In a|ventur|e ther mer|vayles meven.

(The Pearl, ii.)

Mone | makeles | of mighte,
Here co|mes ane er|rant knighte,
Do him | reson|e and righte
For thi | manhead.

("Wheel" of The Awnyrs of Arthur, xxvii.)

XIII. Later Middle English Period
Potentially Metrical Lines in Langland (see [Book II]).

Decasyllables:

For Ja|mes the gen|tel bond | it in | his book.

(A. i. 159.)

Thus I | live lov|eless lik|e a lu|ther dogge.

(A. v. 97.)

Alexandrines:

And ser|ved Treu|the soth|lyche | somdel | to paye.

(C. viii. 189.)

Adam | and A|braham | and Y|say the | prophete.

(B. xvi. 81.)

Fourteeners:

But if | he wor|che well | there-with | as Do|wel him | techeth.

(B. viii. 56.)

Of a|ny sci|ence un|der son|ne the se|ven arts | and alle.

(B. xi. 166.)

A large number might be added where the pronunciation which was shortly to come in necessarily makes such lines, though they may not have been intended as such; for instance—

Take we | her words | at worth, | for her | witness | be true;

(B. xii. 125.)

and even octosyllables will appear—

Ne no say robe in rich[e] pelure;

(A. iii. 277.)

partly explaining to us the chaos of lines in fifteenth-century poetry.

XIV. Later Middle English Period
Scansions from Chaucer.

Octosyllable:

Hit was | of Ve|nus re|dely,
This tem|ple; for | in por|treyture,
I saw | anoon | right hir | figure
Na|ked fle|tynge in | a see.
And al|so on hir heed, | parde,
Hir ro|se gar|lond white | and reed,
And | hir comb | to kemb|e hir heed,
Hir dow|ves, and | daun Cu|pido,
Hir blin|de son|e, and Vul|cano,
That in | his fa|ce was | ful broun.

(House of Fame, i. 130-139.)

(Two "acephalous" lines, initial monosyllabic feet, or trochaic admixtures; some unimportant elisions before vowels and h; middle pause not kept in lines 1, 4, 6, and 10.)

Rhyme-royal:

And down | from then|nès faste | he gan | avise
This li|tel spot | of erthe | that with | the see
Embra|cèd is, | and ful|ly gan | despise
This wrec|ched world, | and held | al vanite,
To re|spect of | the pleyne | feli|cite
That is | in heven|e above. And at | the laste
Ther he | was slayn | his lo|king down | he caste.

(Troilus and Criseyde, v. 1814-20.)

(Metre quite regular, but pause much varied—practically none in line 5. Elisions as above, but e's not valued, or elided, in erthe, pleyne. Final couplet hendecasyllabic, as indeed most are.)

(a) Riding rhyme or heroic couplet:

Whan that April|le with | his shou|res soote
The droght|e of March | hath per|ced to | the roote,
And bath|ed ev|ery veyn|e in swich | licour
Of which | vertu | engen|dred is |the fleur;
Whan Ze|phirus | eek with | his swe|te breeth
Inspi|red hath | in ev|ery holt | and heeth
The ten|dre crop|pes, and | the yon|ge sonne
Hath in | the Ram | his half|e cours | y-ronne,
And smal|e fowel|es ma|ken me|lodye,
That sle|pen al | the nyght | with o|pen eye,—
So pri|keth hem | Nature | in hir | corages,—
Thanne long|en folk | to goon | on pil|grimages,
And pal|meres for | to se|ken straun|ge strondes,
To fer|ne hal|wes, kowth|e in son|dry londes;
And spec|ially, | from ev|ery shi|res ende
Of En|gelond, | to Caun|terbury | they wende,
The hoo|ly blis|ful mar|tir for | to seke
That hem | hath hol|pen whan | that they | were seeke.

(Opening paragraph of Canterbury Tales.)

(Very regular; but possible trisyllabic feet wherever "every" occurs, and a certain one in "Caunt|erbury|." Pause almost indifferently at 4th and 5th syllables. French-Latin accent in "Natùre." Many hendecasyllables or redundances; but all made by the e in one form or another.)

(b) "Acephalous" or nine-syllable lines:

Twen|ty bo|kes clad | in blak | or reed. (Prol. 274.)

(c) Alexandrines:

Westward, | right swich | ano|ther in | the op|posite.

(K. T. 1036.)

So sor|weful|ly eek | that I | wende ver|raily.

(Sq. T. 585.)

XV. Later Middle English Period
Variations from Strict Iambic Norm in Gower.

(a) Trochaic substitution:

Ūndĕr | the gren|e thei | begrave.

(Conf. Am. i. 2348.)

(b) Anapæstic substitution:

Sometime | in cham|bre sometime | in halle.

(iv. 1331.)

Of Je|lousi|e, but what | it is

(v. 447.)

(if the dissyllabic "ie" is insisted on).

And thus | ful oft|e about|e the hals.

(v. 2514.)

It was | fantosm|e but yet | he heard.

(v. 5011.)

(It will be observed that in these four instances, all acknowledged by Professor Macaulay, the final e is required to make the trisyllabic foot, though the first instance differs slightly from the others. I should myself add a large number where Mr. Macaulay sees only "slur," but in which occur words like "ever" (i. 3), "many a" (i. 316, 317), or syllables like "eth," which must be valued in one case at least here—

To breaketh and renneth al aboute,

(Prol. 505.)

where Mr. Macaulay reads "tobrekth," and where the copyists very likely made it so.)

(c) Acephalous lines:

Very rare if the e be always allowed. Perhaps non-existent.

XVI. Transition Period
Examples of Break-down in Literary Verse.

(a) Lydgate's decasyllabic couplet:

Ther he | lay to | the lar|kè song [ ̆ ̄ ]
With no|tès herd|è high | up in | the ayr.
The glad|è mor|owe ro|dy and | right fayr,
Phe|bus al|so cast|ing up | his bemes
The high|e hyl|les ʌ | gilt with | his stremes.

(Story of Thebes, 1250 sqq.)

(3, tolerable; 2, ditto, with hiatus at cæsura; 1, last foot missing; 4, "acephalous"; 5, syllable missing at cæsura.)

(b) His rhyme-royal:

This is | to sein |—douteth | never | a dele—
That ye | shall have | ʌ ful posses|sion
Of him | that ye | ʌ cher|rish now | so wel,
In hon|est man|er, without|e offen|cioun,
Because | I know|e your | enten|cion
Is tru|li set | in par|ti and | in al
To loue | him best | and most | in spe|cial.

(Temple of Glass, st. 16.)

(Two examples (2 and 3) of the so-called "Lydgatian" missing syllable at cæsura.)

(c) A typical minor, John Metham, in Amoryus and Cleopes, stanza 1:

The charms | of love | and eke | the peyn | of Amo|ryus | the knyght
For Cleo|pes sake | and eke | how bothe | in fere
Lovyd | and af|tyr deyed, | my pur|pos ys | to indight.
And now, | O god|dess, I thee | beseche | off kun|ning that | have | syche might,
Help me | to adorne | ther charms | in syche | maner
So that | qwere this | matere | doth yt | require
Bothe ther | lovys I | may compleyne | to loverys | desire.

(A fourteener, a decasyllable, an Alexandrine, a sixteener, and three decasyllables, the last very shaky either as that or as an Alexandrine! In fact, sheer doggerel of the unintended kind.)

XVII. Transition Period
Examples of True Prosody in Ballad, Carols, etc.

(a) Chevy Chase:

The Per|cy out | of Northum|berland,
And a vow | to God | made he,
That he | would hunt | in the moun|tains
Of Chev|iot within | days three,
In the mau|gre of dough|ty Doug|las
And all | that ever with | him be.

(It must be observed that this modern spelling exactly represents the old prosodically. The reader will then see that there are no liberties, on the equivalent system, except the crasis of "-viot" and "ever." The former, insignificant in any case, is still more so here, for the actual Northumbrian pronunciation is or was "Chevot"; while if "ever" changes places with "that," there is not even any crasis needed. For a piece so rough in phrase, and copied by a person so evidently illiterate, the exactness is astonishing.)

(b) "E.I.O.":

To doom | we draw | the sooth | to schaw
In life | that us | was lent,
Ne la|tin, ne law, | may help | ane haw,[36]
But rath|ely us | repent.
The cross, | the crown, | the spear | bees bown,
That Je|su rug|ged and rent,
The nail|ès rude, | shall thee | conclude
With their | own ar|gument.
With E | and O take keep | thereto,
As Christ | himself | us kenned
We com|e and go | to weal | or woe,
That dread|ful doom | shall end.

(Spelling modernised as before, but not a word altered.)

XVIII. Transition Period
Examples of Skeltonic and other Doggerel.

(a) Skelton:

I.

Mirry | Marga|ret
As mid|somer flower,
Gen|tyll as fau|coun
Or hauke | of the tower—
With sol|ace and glad|ness,
Much mirth | and no mad|ness,
All good | and no bad|ness:—
So joy|ously,
So maid|enly,
So wom|anly.
Her de|menyng
In ev|ery thyng
Far far | passyng
That I | can indite
Or suffyce | to write.

(Crown of Laurel.)

II.

But to make | up my tale,
She bru|eth nop|py ale,
And ma|kethe there|of sale,
To travel|lers, || to tink|ers,
To sweat|ers, || to swink|ers,
And all | good || ale-drink|ers
That will noth|ing spare
But drynke | till they stare
And bring | themselves bare,
With "now | away | the mare,
And let | us slay Care,
As wise | as an hare."

(Elinor Rumming.)

(b) Examples from Heywood and other interludes.

(1) Continuous long doggerel:

I can|not tell | you: one knave | disdains | another,
Wherefore | take ye | the tone | and I | shall take | the other.
We shall | bestow | them there | as is most | conven|ient
For such | a coup|le. I trow | they shall | repent
That ev|er they met | in this | church here.

(2) Singles:

(Shortened six.)
This | wyse him | deprave,
(Octosyllable.)
And give | the ab|solu|tion.
(Irregular decasyllable.)
The aboun|dant grace | of the | powèr | divyne
(Alexandrine.)
Preserve | this aud|ience | and leave | them to | inclyne.
(Irregular fourteener.)
Then hold | down thine | head like | a pret|ty man | and take | my blessing.

(In all these examples the doggerel is probably intended; that is to say, the writers are not aiming at a regularity which they cannot reach, but cheerfully or despairingly renouncing it.)

XIX. Transition Period
Examples from the Scottish Poets.

(a) Barbour (regular octosyllables):

The kyng | toward | the vod | is gane,
Wery, | for-swat and vill | of vayn;
Intill | the wod | soyn en|terit he,
And held | doun to|ward a | valè,
Quhar throu | the vod | a vat|tir ran.
Thiddir | in gret | hy went | he than,
And | begouth | to rest | hym thair,
And said | he mycht | no for|thirmair.

(One "acephalous" line.)

(b) Wyntoun (octosyllables somewhat freer):

Thir sev|yn kyng|is reg|nand were
A hun|der ful|ly and for|ty year,
And fra | thir kyng|is thus | can cess
In Ro|me thai che|sit twa con|sulès.

(IV. ii. 157-160.)

(c) Blind Harry (regular decasyllables on French model):

Than Wal|lace socht | quhar his | wncle suld be;
In a | dyrk cawe | he was | set|dul|fullè,
Quhar wat|ter stud, | and he | in yrn|yss strang.
Wallace | full sone | the brass|is wp | he dang;
Off that | myrk holl | brocht him | with strenth | and lyst,
Bot noyis | he hard, | off no|thing ellis | he wyst.
So blyth | befor | in warld | he had | nocht beyn,
As thair | with sycht, | quhen he | had Wal|lace seyn.

(d) James I. (rhyme-royal):

For wak|it and | for-wal|owit, thus | musing,
Wery | forlain | I list|enyt sod|dynlye,
And sone | I herd | the bell | to ma|tyns ryng,
And up | I rase, | no lon|ger wald | I lye:
Bot soon, | how trow|e ye? Suich | a fan|tasye
Fell me | to mynd | that ay | me thoght | the bell
Said to | me, "Tell | on, man, | what the | befell."

(e) Henryson (ballad measure; slight anapæstic substitution):

Makyne, | the night | is soft | and dry,
The wed|dir is warm | and fair,
And the gre|nè wuid | richt neir | us by
To walk | out on | all quhair:
Thair ma | na jan|gloor us | espy,
That is | to lufe | contrair,
Thairin, | Makyne, | bath ye | and I
Unseen | we ma | repair.

Those who deny the valued e in "grenè," as not Scots, may refuse the second instance of trisyllabic feet, but the first will remain.

(f) Dunbar (alliterative):

I saw thre gay ladeis sit in ane grein arbeir,
All grathit into garlandis of fresche gudelie flouris;
So glitterit as the gold wer thair glorius gilt tressis,
Quhill all the gressis did gleme of the glaid hewis;
Kemmit was thair cleir hair, and curiouslie sched
Attour thair schulderis doun schyre, schyning full bricht.

Dunbar (dimeter iambic quatrains with refrain, and much anapæstic substitution):

Come ne|vir yet May | so fresch|e and grene,
Bot Jan|uar come | als wud and kene—
Wes nev|ir sic drowth | bot anis | come raine,
All erd|ly joy | returnis | in pane.

(g) Alexander Scott (stanzas):

It cumis | yow luv|aris to | be laill,
Of bo|dy, hairt | and mynd | al haill,
And though | ye with | year la|dyis daill—
Ressoun;
Bot and | your faith | and law|ty faill—
Tressoun!
.   .   .   .   .   .   .
Be land | or se,
Quhaur ev|ir I be,
As ye | fynd me,
So tak | me;
And gif | I le,
And from | yow fle,
Ay quhill | I de
Forsaik | me!

(h) Montgomerie (Cherry and Slae stanza):

About | ane bank | quhair birdis | on bewis
Ten thou|sand tymis | thair notis | renewis
Ilke houre | into | the day,
The merle | and ma|ueis micht | be sene,
The Prog|ne and | the Phel|omene,
Quhilk caus|sit me | to stay.
I lay | and leynit | me to | ane bus
To heir | the bir|dis beir;
Thair mirth | was sa | melo|dious
Throw na|ture of | the yeir;
Sum sing|ing, || some spring|ing
With wingis | into | the sky,
So trim|lie, || and nim|lie,
Thir birdis | they flew | me by.

XX. Early Elizabethan Period
Examples of Reformed Metre from Wyatt, Surrey, and other Poets before Spenser.

(a) Wyatt (sonnet)

The long[e] | love that | in my | thought I | harbèr
And in | my heart | doth keep | his re|sidence,
Into | my face | presseth | with bold | pretence,
And there | campèth | display|ing his | bannèr:
She that | me learns | to love | and to | suffèr,
And wills | that my | trust and | lust[e]s neg|ligence
Be rein|ed by rea|son, shame, | and rev|erence,
With his | hardì|ness tak|ès dis|pleasùre,
Wherewith | love to | the hart[e]s | forest | he fleèth,
Leaving | his en|terprise | with pain | and cry,
And there | him hi|deth and | not àp|pearèth. |
What may | I do? | when my | master | feareth,
But in | the field | with him | to live | and die,
For good | is thè | life end|ing faith|fully.

(I formerly scanned line 9:

Wherewith | love to |the hart's fo|rest he | fleèth.

But "forèst" is so frequent and makes such a much better rhythm that perhaps it should be preferred. It will, however, emphasise still further the poet's curious uncertainty about the "-eth" rhymes—whether he shall arrange them on that syllable only, or take in the penultimate. Besides this point, the student should specially notice the pains taken to get, not merely the feet, but the syllables right at the cost sometimes of pretty strongly "wrenched" accent. On all this see [Book II]. The final è's are rather a curiosity than important: longè may have been sounded, "luste" and "harte" (so printed in Tottel) improbably.)

(b) Wyatt (lyric stanza):

Forget | not yet | the tried | intent
Of such | a truth | as I | have meant,
My great | travàil, | so glad|ly spent,
Forget | not yet!

Forget | not yet | when first | began
The wea|ry life | ye know, | since whan
The suit, | the ser|vice, none | tell can—
Forget | not yet!

(It will be observed that this rondeau-like motion, with its short lines and frequent repetition, is brought off better than the sonnet, though the French accent sticks in travàil.)

(c) Surrey (sonnet):

I nev|er saw | my la|dy lay | apart
Her cor|net black, | in cold | nor yet | in heat,
Sith first | she knew | my grief | was grown | so great;
Which o|ther fan|cies dri|veth from | my heart,
That to | myself | I do | the thought | reserve,
The which | unwares | did wound | my woe|ful breast.
But on | her face | mine eyes | mought ne|ver rest
Yet, since | she knew | I did | her love, | and serve
Her gold|en tress|es clad | alway | with black,
Her smil|ing looks | that hid[es] | thus ev|ermore
And that | restrains | which I | desire | so sore.
So doth | this cor|net gov|ern me, | alack!
In sum|mer sun, | in win|ter's breath, | a frost
Whereby | the lights | of her | fair looks | I lost.

(Observe how much more surely and lightly the younger poet treads in the uncertain pioneer footsteps of the elder.)

(d) Surrey ("poulter's measure"):

Good la|dies, ye | that have || your pleas|ures in | exile,
Step in | your foot, | come take | a place | and mourn | with me | a while;
And such | as by, | their lords || do set | but lit|tle price,
Let them | sit still, | it skills | them not | what chance | come on | the dice.
But ye | whom love | hath bound || by or|der of | desire
To love | your lords, | whose good | deserts | none oth|er would | require,
Come ye | yet once | again || and set |your foot | by mine,
Whose wo|ful plight | and sor|rows great | no tongue | can even | define.

(Very little to be said for it, except as a school of regular rhythm. Broken up into "short measure" (6, 6, 8, 6) it has been not ineffective in hymns.)

(e) Gascoigne (lyric stanza):

Sing lull|aby, | as wom|en do,
Wherewith | they bring | their babes | to rest,
And lull|aby | can I | sing too,
As wom|anly | as can | the best.
With lull|aby | they still | the child;
And if | I be | not much | beguiled,
Full ma|ny wan|ton babes | have I
Which must | be stilled | with lull|aby.

(f) Turberville (lyric stanza):

As I | in this | have done | your will,
And mind | to do,
So I | request | you to | fulfil
My fan|cy too,
A green | and lov|ing heart | to have,
And this | is all | that I | do crave.

(Observe in both of these the absolute syllabic regularity, and observance of foot-rhythm.)

XXI. Spenser[37] at Different Periods

(a) Shep. Kal. (strict stanza):

Thou bar|ren ground, | whom win|ter's wrath | has wasted,
Art made | a mir|ror to | behold | my plight:
Whilome | thy fresh | spring flower'd, | and af|ter hasted
Thy sum|mer proud, | with daf|fodil|lies dight;
And now | is come | thy win|ter's storm|y state,
Thy man|tle marr'd | wherein | thou mask|edst late.

(Regular iambs throughout. One double rhyme.)

(b) Shep. Kal. (equivalenced octosyllable—Christabel or Genesis and Exodus metre):

His harm|ful hat|chĕt hĕ hēnt | in hand,
(Alas! | that it | so read|y̆ shŏuld stānd!)
And to | the field | alone | he speedeth,
(Aye lit|tle help | to harm | there needeth!)
Anger | nould let | him speak |tŏ thĕ trēe,
Enaun|tĕr hĭs rāge | mought cool|ed bee;
But to | thĕ rŏot bēnt | his sturd|y stroke,
And made | măny̆ wōunds | in the | waste oak.
The ax|e's edge | did oft turne | again,
As half | unwill|ĭng tŏ cūt | the grain.
Seemed | the sense|less ir|on did fear,
Or to | wrong ho|ly eld | dĭd fŏrbēar—
For it | had been | an an|cient tree,
Sacred | with ma|ny̆ ă mȳs|tery,
And of|ten crossèd | with the pries|tès cruise
And of|ten hal|lowed with ho|ly wa|ter dews.

(Observe that this last is the only distinct, if not the only possible, decasyllabic couplet, while it can become an Alexandrine by valuing "hal|lowèd" |; and that "priestès" is the only attempt at valued Chaucerian e.)

(c) Shep. Kal. (equivalenced stanza):

Bring hi|thĕr thĕ pīnk and pur|ple col|umbine,
With gil|lyflowers;
Bring cor|ona|tions | and sops | in wine,
Worn of | părămōurs:
Strow me | the ground | with daf|fadown | dillies,[38]
And cow|slips and | kingcups | and lov|ed lil|liès:
The pret|ty paunce,
And the chev|isaunce,
Shall match | with the fair | flow'r delice.

It may be just desirable to remind the student that a final "-ion" is commonly dissyllabic in the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries. "Worn of par|amours" is possible.

(d) "Spenserian" stanza (occasional, but mostly slight, equivalence. Pause in ll. 1-8 at discretion; in 9 usually at middle, but, as in the following, not always):

So pass|eth, in | the pass|ing of | a day
Of mor|tal life, | the leaf, | the bud, | the flower;
No more | doth flour|ish af|ter first | decay
That erst | was sought | to deck | both bed | and bower
Of ma|ny̆ ă lā|dy̆ ănd mā|ny̆ ă pār|amour!
Gather, | therefore, | the rose | while yet | is prime,
For soon | comes age | that will | her pride | deflower:
Gather | the rose | of love | whilst yet | is time,
Whilst lov|ing thou | mayst lov|èd be | with e|qual crime.

(e) Mother Hubberd's Tale (antithetic and stopped heroic couplet):

Full litt|le know|est thou | that hast | not tried,
What hell | it is, | in su|ing long | to bide:
To lose | good days | that might | be bet|ter spent;
To waste | long nights | in pen|sive dis|content;
To speed | to-day, | to be | put back | to-morrow;
To feed | on hope, | to pine | with fear | and sorrow;
To have | thy Prin|ce's grace, | yet want | her Peer's;
To have | thy ask|ing, yet | wait ma|ny years;
To fret | thy soul | with cross|es and | with cares;
To eat | thy heart | through com|fortless | despairs;
To fawn, | to crouch, | to wait, | to ride, | to run,
To spend, | to give, | to want, | to be | undone.

(f) Epithalamion (elaborate quasi-Pindaric stanza concerted in different line length, but almost strictly iambic; "the," etc., before a vowel being probably elided):

Open | the tem|ple gates | unto | my Love,
Open | them wide | that she | may en|ter in,
And all | the posts | adorn | as doth | behove,
And all | the pil|lars deck | with gar|lands trim,
For to | receive | this Saint | with hon|our due,
That com|eth in | to you.
With trem|bling steps, | and hum|ble rev|erence,
She com|eth in, | before | th' Almight|y's view:
Of her, | ye vir|gins, learn | obe|dience,
When so | ye come, | into | those ho|ly places,
To hum|ble your | proud faces:
Bring her | up to | th' High Al|tar, that | she may
The sa|cred ce|remo|nies there | partake
The which | do end|less ma|trimo|ny make;
And let | the roar|ing or|gans loud|ly play
The prai|ses of | the Lord | in live|ly notes,
The whiles | with hol|low throats
The cho|risters | the joy|ous an|them sing,
That all | the woods | may an|swer, and | their ech|o ring!

XXII. Examples of the Development of Blank Verse

(a) Surrey (translation of Aeneid):

It was | the night; | the sound | and qui|et sleep
Had through | the earth | the wear|y bod|ies caught,
The woods, | the ra|ging seas, | were fallen |to rest,
When that | the stars | had half | their course | declined.
The fields | whist: beasts | and fowls | of di|vers hue,
And what | so that | in the | broad lakes | remained,
Or yet | among | the bush|y thicks | of briar,
Laid down | to sleep | by sil|ence of | the night,
'Gan swage | their cares, | mindless | of tra|vails past.
Not so | the spirit | of this | Phenic|ian.
Unhap|py she | that on | no sleep | could chance,
Nor yet | night's rest | enter | in eye | or breast.
Her cares | redoub|le: love | doth rise | and rage | again,
And ov|erflows | with swell|ing storms | of wrath.

(The interest of the new mode here is manifold. The lines are almost wholly "single-moulded," the author's anxiety to keep himself right without rhyme necessitating this. The cæsura at the fourth syllable is almost always kept, according to the tradition of the French line. Once (in the penultimate line) he has to overflow; but into an Alexandrine, not into the next line. Whether by intention or not—"sprite" being possible—he once discovers the enormous advantage of the trisyllabic foot.[39] Once he makes with "rest" and "breast" the oversight of a "Leonine" rhyme. But, on the whole, the success is remarkable for a beginning; and there are indications of what has to be done to secure the end.)

(b) First dramatic attempts—Gorboduc onwards:

Sackville and Norton.

Your won|ted true | regard | of faith|ful hearts
Makes me, | O king, | the bold|er to | resume,
To speak | what I | conceive | within | my breast:
Although | the same | do not | agree | at all
With that | which o|ther here | my lords | have said,
Nor which | yourself | have seem|èd best | to like.

(Gorboduc.)

Hughes and others.

What! shall | I stand | whiles Ar|thur sheds | my blood?
And must | I yield | my neck | unto | the axe?
Whom fates | constrain |let him | forego | his bliss.
But he | that need|less yields | unto | his bane
When he | may shun, | does well | deserve | to lose
The good | he can|not use. | Who would | sustain
A ba|ser life | that may | maintain | the best?

(Misfortunes of Arthur.)

Peele.

Were ev|ĕry̆ shīp | ten thou|sand on | the seas,
Manned with | the strength | of all | the eas|tern kings,
Convey|ing all | the mon|archs of | the world,
Tŏ ĭnvāde | the is|land where | her High|ness reigns—
'Twere all | in vain: | for heav|ĕns ănd dēs|tinies
Attend | and wait | upon | her Maj|esty!

(Battle of Alcazar.)

Greene.

Why thinks | King Hen|ry's son | that Mar|gărĕt's lōve
Hangs in | thĕ ŭncēr|tain bal|ance of | proud time?
That death | shall make | a dis|cord of | our thoughts?
No! stab | the earl: | and ere | the morn|ing sun
Shall vaunt | him thrice | over | the lof|ty east,
Mārgărĕt | will meet | her Lac|y in | the heavens!

(F. Bacon and F. Bungay.}

Marlowe.

Black is | the beau|ty of | the bright|est day!
The gol|den ball | of Heav|en's eter|nal fire,
That danced | with glo|ry on | the sil|ver waves,
Now wants | the glo|ry that | inflamed | his beams:
And all | for faint|ness and | for foul | disgrace,
He binds | his tem|ples with | a frown|ing cloud,
Ready | to dark|en earth | with end|less night.

(Tamburlaine.)

(An extreme stiffness and "single-mouldedness" in the lines; modified in Peele and Greene by trisyllabic feet, perhaps not intended as such ("heav'n" was pretty certainly regarded and generally spelt as a monosyllable, and the pronunciations "ev'ry" and "Margret" are old; while "t'invade" and "th'uncertain" would be likely), but virtually so, and inviting, especially in "Margaret," the full and beautiful value. The Gorboduc form, as is natural, is much the least accomplished. It is indeed what, by an almost incomprehensible inversion of sense and nature, some people call "blank verse according to the rules"—ten syllables only, five almost strictly iambic feet (="accent on the even places"); pause near the middle; stop, metrical, if not grammatical, at every end—in fact, the roughest and most rudimentary form possible.)

(c) Early non-dramatic blanks (Gascoigne):

And on | their backs | they bear | both land | and fee,
Castles | and towers, | reven|ues and | receipts,
Lordships | and ma|nors, fines,|—yea farms|—and all.
"What should | these be?" | (speak you, | my love|ly lord?)
They be | not men: | for why, | they have | no beards.
They be | no boys, | which wear | such side|long gowns.
They be | no gods, | for all | their gal|lant gloss.
They be | no devils, | I trow, | which seem | so saintish.
What be | they? wom|en? mask|ing in | men's weeds
With dutch|kin doub|lets and | with jerk|ins jagged?
With Span|ish spangs, | and ruffs | set out | of France,
With high | copt hats | and feath|ers flaunt-|a-flaunt?
They be, | so sure, | even woe | to men | indeed.

(It will be noticed that the "single-moulded" character is even more noticeable here than in drama, and is emphasised by the epanaphora. There is one redundance—"saintish" ("jagged" is probably "jagg'd"), and, as we know that the author thought the iamb the only English foot, we must not read "rĕvĕnue," but, with "tow'rs," "revènue"—which indeed was, by precisians, regarded as the correct pronunciation not so very long ago.)

(d) Perfected "single-mould":

Peele.

Come, gen|tle Ze|phyr, trick'd | with those | perfùmes
That erst | in E|den sweet|en'd Ad|am's love,
And stroke | my bos|om with |thy silk|en fan:
This shade, | sun-proof, | is yet | no proof | for thee;
Thy bo|dy, smooth|er than | this wave|less spring,
And pu|rer than | the sub|stance of | the same,
Can creep | through that | his lan|ces can|not pierce:
Thou, and | thy sis|ter, soft | and sa|cred Air,
Goddess | of life, | and gov|erness | of health,
Keep ev|ery fount|ain fresh | and ar|bour sweet;
No bra|zen gate | her pas|sage can | repulse,
Nor bush|y thick|et bar | thy sub|tle breath:
Then deck | thee with | thy loose | delight | some robes,
And on | thy wings | bring del|icate | perfumes,
To play | the wan|ton with | us through | the leaves.

(David and Bethsabe.)

Marlowe.

If all | the pens | that ev|er po|ets held
Had fed | the feel|ing of | their mas|ters' thoughts,
And ev|ery sweet|ness that | inspir'd | their hearts,
Their minds, | and mu|ses, on | admir|èd themes;
If all | the heav|enly quint|essence | they 'still
From their | immort|al flowers | of po|esy,
Wherein | as in | a mir|ror we | perceive
The high|est reach|es of | a hu|man wit;
If these | had made | one po|em's per|iod,
And all | combined | in beau|ty's worth|iness,
Yet should | there hov|er in | their rest|less heads
One thought, | one grace, | one won|der at | the least,
Which in|to words | no vir|tue can | digest.

(Tamburlaine.)

(These passages, despite their extreme poetical beauty, are still prosodically immature. Even when, as in the last, there are lines with no technical "stop" at the end, as at "held" and "heads," the grammatical incompleteness does not interfere with the rounding off of the prosodic period or sub-period. Marlowe (v. inf.) could enjamb couplet beautifully, but not blank verse. Note also that the lines are strictly decasyllabic, the only hints at trisyllabic feet being in words like "Heaven," then regularly a monosyllable, "every," and "flowers.")

(e) Shakespeare.

(1) Early single-moulded:

Upon | his blood|y fin|ger he | doth wear
A pre|cious ring, | that light|ens all | the hole,
Which, like | the ta|per in | some mon|ument,
Doth shine | upon | the dead | man's earth|y cheeks,
And shows | the rag|ged en|trails of | the pit.

(Titus Andronicus.)

(Same remarks applying as to the last citation.)

(2) Beginning of perfected stage:

Why art | thou yet | so fair? | shall I | believe
That un|substan|tial death | is am|orous,
And that | the lean | abhor|rèd mon|ster keeps
Thee here | in dark | to be | his par|amour?
For fear | of that, | I still | will stay | with thee:
And ne|ver from | this pal|ace of | dim night
Depart | again: | here, here | will I | remain
With worms | that are | thy cham|ber-maids; | O, here
Will I | set up | my ev|erlast|ing rest.
And shake | the yoke | of in|auspic|ious stars
From this | world-wear|ied flesh.

(Romeo and Juliet.)

(No trisyllabic feet yet, and no redundance: but, by shift of pause and completer juncture of lines, the paragraph effect solidly founded.)

(3) Further process in the same direction:

Nay, || but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure: || those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files | and musters of the war
Have glowed like plated Mars, || now bend, | now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front: || his captain's heart,
Which | in the scuffles of great fights | hath burst
The buckles on his breast, || rene[a]ges all temper,
And is become | the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy's lust.

(Antony and Cleopatra.)

(Here the double division marks indicate stronger, and the single lighter, pauses—not, as usually in the latter case, feet. The variation of the pause for paragraph effect is here consummate; but the verse, as its conditions require, is of the severer type.)

(4) Perfection in passion:

Blow winds, | and crack | your cheeks! | rage! | blow!
You cat|aracts | and hur|rica|noes, spout
Till you | have drench'd | our stee|ples, drown'd | the cocks!
You sul|phurous and | thought-ex|ecut|ing fires,
Vaunt-cour|iers to | oak-cleav|ing thun|derbolts,
Singe my | white head! | And thou, | all-shak|ing thunder,
Smite flat | the thick | rotund|ity o' | the world!
Crack na|ture's moulds, | all ger|mens spill | at once,
That make | ingrate|ful man!

(King Lear.)

(Every extension taken. Monosyllabic feet either at the first "blow" and "winds," or the last, and "rage," perhaps at both (an Alexandrine). Trisyllabic at "-phŭrŏus ānd," "rĭĕrs tō," and "ĭty̆ ō̆'." Redundance at "-ing thun⋮der." Pause fully played upon as above: enjambment at "spout"; parenthetic enjambment at "fires.")

(5) Perfection in quiet:

Our rev|els now | are end|ed. These | our actors,
As I | foretold | you, were | all spir|its, and
Are melt|ed in|to air, | into | thin air:
And, like | the base|less fab|ric of | this vision,
The cloud-|capped towers, | the gor|geous pal|aces,
The sol|emn tem|ples, the | great globe | itself,
Yea, all | which it | inher|it, shall | dissolve
And, like | this in|substan|tial pa|geant faded,
Leave not | a rack | behind. | We are | such stuff
As dreams | are made | of, and | our lit|tle life
Is round|ed with | a sleep.

(The Tempest.)

(Not much trisyllabic—the dreaminess not requiring it. A good deal of redundance, and enjambment pushed nearly to the furthest by taking place at "and."[40])

(f) Redundance encroaching.

Beaumont and Fletcher:

"Oh | thou conqu[e]ror,
Thou glo|ry of | the world | once, now | the pity:
Thou awe | of na|tions, where|fore didst | thou fail us?
What poor | fate fol|lowed thee, | and plucked | thee on
To trust | thy sa|cred life | to an | Egyptian?
The life | and light | of Rome | to a | blind stranger,
That hon|oura|ble war | ne'er taught | a no|bleness
Nor wor|thy cir|cumstance | show'd what | a man was?
That ne|ver heard | thy name | sung but | in banquets
And loose | lasciv|ious pleas|ures? to | a boy
That had | no faith | to com|prehend | thy greatness,
No stud|y of | thy life | to know | thy goodness?...
Egyp|tians, dare | you think | your high | pyra|mides
Built to | out-dure | the sun, | as you | suppose,
Where your | unworth|y kings | lie rak'd | in ashes,
Are mon|uments fit | for him! | No, brood | of Nilus,
Nothing | can cov|er his | high fame | but heaven;
No pyr|amid | set off | his mem|ories,
But the | eter|nal sub|stance of | his greatness,
To which I leave him."

(The False One.)

(Here it will be seen there are two actual Alexandrines (three if we allow the full value to "con|queror|") and twelve redundant lines to four non-redundant! The fire of the poetry fuses this, but cannot always be counted on, as in the next.)

(2) If I | had swelled | the sol|dier, or | intended
An act | in per|son lean|ing to | dishonour,
As you | would fain | have forced | me, wit|ness Heaven,
Where clear|est und|erstand|ing of | all truth is
(For men | are spite|ful men, | and know | no pi[e]ty).
When O|lin came, | grim O|lin, when | his marches, etc., etc., etc.

(The Loyal Subject.)

(Which, with its repetition of stumbling amphibrachic ends, is rather hideous.)

(g) Spread of the infection, and complete decay of blank verse from various causes.

(1) Shirley:

I dare,
With conscience or my pure intent, try what
Rudeness you find upon my lip, 'tis chaste
As the desires that breathe upon my language.
I began, Felisarda, to affect thee
By seeing thee at prayers; thy virtue winged
Love's arrows first, and 'twere a sacrilege
To choose thee now for sin, that hast a power
To make | this place | a tem|ple by | thy in|nocence.
I know thy poverty, and came not to
Bribe it against thy chastity; if thou
Vouchsafe thy fair and honest love, it shall
Adorn my fortunes which shall stoop to serve it
In spite of friends or destiny.

(The Brothers.)

(Actual scansion quite correct, and therefore not marked throughout. Redundance not excessive ("innocence" may be taken as such, and not as making an Alexandrine, if liked); hardly any, and no misused, trisyllabic feet. But enjambment at "what," "to," "thou," and "shall" badly managed.)

(2) Suckling:

Softly, | as death | itself | comes on
When it | doth steal | away | the sick | man's breath,
And standers-by perceive it not,
Have I trod the way unto their lodgings.
How wisely do those powers
That give | us hap|piness or|der it!

(Aglaura.)

(A hopeless jumble. The 1st, as a fragment, and 2nd lines are all right, and the 6th could be completed properly. But 3, 4, and 5—though 3 and 5 could come in with other companions—upset any kind of continuous arrangement, and 4 would hardly be good anywhere.)

(3) Davenant:

Rhodolinda doth become her title
And her birth. Since deprived of popular
Homage, she hath been queen over her great self.
In this captivity ne'er passionate
But when she hears me name the king, and then
Her passions not of anger taste but love:
Love of her conqueror; he that in fierce
Battle (when the cannon's sulphurous breath
Clouded the day) her noble father slew.

(Albovine.)

(More hopeless still, and left unscanned for the student's edification.)

(h) The Miltonic Restoration.

Early dramatic experiment.

Comus is evidently written under three different influences, which may be said to be in the main those of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Fletcher. The poet often uses Fletcher's heavy trisyllabic endings—

Bore a bright golden flower, but not | ĭn thĭ̄s sŏ̄il;

and has not infrequent Alexandrines, the most certain of which is—

As to | make this | rela|tion.
Care | and ut|most shifts.

But he makes the verse more and more free and original, as in the following extracts:

Yea, there | where ve|ry des|ola|tion dwells,
By grots | and ca|verns shagged | with hor|rid shades,
She may | pass on | with un|blenched maj|esty,
Be it | not done | in pride | or in | presump|tion.
Some say | no ev|il thing | that walks | by night,
In fog | or fire, | by lake | or moor|ish fen,
Blue mea|gre hag, | or stub|born un|laid ghost,
That breaks | his mag|ic chains | at cur|few time,
No gob|lin or |swart fa|ery of | the mine,
Hath hurt|ful power | o'er true | virgin|ity.
Do ye | believe | me yet, | or shall | I call
Anti|quity | from the | old schools | of Greece
To test|ify | the arms | of chas|tity?

Hence had | the hunt|ress Di|an her | dread bow,
Fair sil|ver-shaft|ed queen | for ev|er chaste,
Wherewith | she tamed | the brind|ed li|oness
And spot|ted moun|tain-pard, | but set | at nought
The fri|vŏlŏus bōlt | of Cu|pid; gods | and men
Feared her | stern frown, | and she | was queen | ŏ' thĕ wōods.
.   .   .   .   .   .   .

Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss.

(The full comments given on previous passages make it unnecessary to annotate this much. The last passage has the full paragraph combination.[41])

XXIII. Examples of Elizabethan Lyric

(a) Prae-Spenserian:

Not light | of love, la|dy,
Though fan|cy do prick | thee,
Let con|stancy | possess | thy heart:
Well wor|thy of blam|yng
They be | and defam|ing,
From plight|ed troth | which back | do start.
Dear dame!
Then fick|leness ban|ish
And fol|ly extin|guish,
Be skil|ful in guid|ing,
And stay | thee from slid|ing,
And stay | thee,
And stay | thee!

(Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions (1578).)

(Anapæstic substitution (if not definite anapæstic base) arising doubtless rather from tune than from deliberate prosodic purpose; but quite prosodically correct, and sure to propagate itself.)

(b) Post-Spenserian:

My bon|ny lass, | thine eye,
So sly
Hath made | me sor|row so—
Thy crim|son cheeks, | my dear,
So clear,
Have so | much wrought | my woe,

(Phœnix Nest (1593).)

(Pure iambics; effect produced by short "bob" rhymes.)

(c) Ben Jonson (strict common measure):

Drīnk tŏ | me on|ly with | thine eyes
And I | will pledge | with mine;
Or leave | a kiss | but in | the cup
And I'll | not look | for wine.
The thirst | that from | the soul | doth rise
Doth ask | a drink | divine;
But might | I of | Jōve's nēc|tar sip,
I would | not change | for thine.

(As mostly with Ben, strict iambics, save for the opening trochee, and something like a spondee in "Jove's nec-." The wonderful effect which he, or Donne, or the Spirit of the Age, taught to the next two generations is produced entirely by careful choice and fingering of the words and rhymes.)

(d) Ben Jonson (anapæstic measure):

See the cha|riot at hand | here of Love!
Wherein | my La|dy rid|eth.
Each that draws | is a swan | or a dove,
And well | the car | Love guid|eth.
As she goes, | all hearts | do du|ty
Unto | her beau|ty;
And enam|oured do wish, | so they might
But enjoy | such a sight,
That they still | were to run | by her side
Th[o]rough ponds, | th[o]rough seas, | whither she | would ride.

("Through," as often, is probably to be valued "thorough," and "chariot" was generally "chawyot" or "charret." It will be observed that although this is fine it is slightly laboured. The age was hardly at ease with the anapæst as yet.)

(e) Campion (selections):

(1) Classical

English anacreontic.

Fōllŏw, | fōllŏw,
Though with | mischief
Armed like | whirlwind
How she | flies still.

English elegiac.

Constant | to none, | but ev|er false | to me,
Traitor | still to | love through thy | false desires,
Not hope | of pit|y now, |nor vain | redress,
Turns my | grief to | tears and re|newed la|ments.

English iambic.

Rose-|cheeked Lau|ra, come;
Sing | thou smooth|ly with | thy beauty's
Sil|ent mu|sic, ei|ther other
Sweet|ly gracing.

(2) Natural

Fōllŏw thȳ făir sūn, ŭnhāppy̆ shādŏw!
Thŏugh thōu | bĕ blāck ăs nīght,
And she | made all | of light,
Yet fol|low thy | fair sun,| unhap|py shadow!

Break now,| my heart, | and die! | O no, | she may | relent—
Let my | despair | prevail! O stay, | hope is | not spent.
Should she | now fix | one smile | on thee, | where were | despair?
The loss | is but ea|sy which smiles | can repair;
A stran|ger would please | thee, if she | were as fair.

The student should require little assistance here, odd as some of the rhythms may seem. But "Rose-cheeked Laura" ought to be trochaically scanned, and will then be naturally "English." Nothing can make the "English elegiac" harmonious. Note that line 3 of "Break now" may be anapæstic like 4 and 5:

Shŏuld shĕ nōw | fĭx ŏne smīle, etc.[42]

XXIV. Early Continuous Anapæsts

(a) Tusser (1st ed. 1557; complete, 1573):

Now leeks | are in sea|son for pot|tage full good,
And spar|eth the milch | cow and purg|eth the blood:
These hav|ing with pea|son for pot|tage in Lent,
Thou spar|est both oat|meal and bread | to be spent.

(Perfectly good, though not very euphonious.)

(b) Gifford, H. (1580):

If I | should write rash|ly what comes | in my train
It might | be such mat|ter as likes | you not best,
And ra|ther I would | great sor|row sustain
Than not | to fulfil | your law|ful request.

(c) Mary Ambree (c. 1584):

[When] cap|tains coura|geous whom death | could [not] daunt
[Did march | to the siege of] the ci|ty of Gaunt,
They mus|tered their sol|diers by two | and by three,
And the fore|most in bat|tle was Ma|ry Ambree.

(Percy patched the bracketed words (his copy being evidently corrupt) in lines 1 and 2. But 3 and 4 are exactly as in the folio; and their anapæstic base is quite clear. At the same time, it is worth remarking that these early lines are apt, frequently though not regularly, to buttress their start on a dissyllabic foot.)

XXV. The Enjambed Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)

(a) Spenser.

The very opening of Mother Hubberd's Tale (1591), quoted above (p. [62]) in its stopped aspect, shows the way to enjambment:

It was | the month | in which | the right|eous Maid,
That for | disdain | of sin|ful world's | upbraid,
Fled back | to heaven.

And we have, further, an instance as shocking to "regular" prosodists as anything in the seventeenth century:

Whilome, | said she, | before | the world | was civil,
The Fox | and th' Ape, | dislik|ing of | their evil
And hard | estate.

(b) Marlowe—as remarkable in Hero and Leander for this as for "single-moulding" in blank verse:

Where the ground
Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves
Sweet-singing mermaids sported with their loves
On heaps of heavy gold.

(c) Drayton began with fairly separated couplets; but indulged in overrunning later, as in David and Goliath:

Grim vis|age war | more stern|ly doth | awake
Than it | was wont | and fur|ĭŏusly̆̄
Her light|ning sword.

(d) Browne:

It chanced one morn, clad in a robe of grey,
And blushing oft, as rising to betray,
Enticed this lovely maiden from her bed
(So when the roses have discoverèd
Their taintless beauties, flies the early bee
About the winding alleys merrily)
Into the wood, and 'twas her usual sport,
Sitting where most harmonious birds resort,
To imitate their warbling in Aprìl,
Wrought by the hand of Pan, which she did fill
Half full of water.

(The actual verse-sentence does not end for another half-dozen lines; but the scansion is so perfectly regular that it seems unnecessary to mark it. "Aprìl" is quite Spenserian, and has both Latin and French justification.)

(e) The later seventeenth-century enjambers:

Chalkhill. The rebels, as you heard, being driven hence,
Despairing e'er to expiate their offence
By a too late submission, fled to sea
In such poor barks as they could get, where they
Roamed up and down, which way the winds did please,
Without a chart or compass: the rough seas
Enraged with such a load of wickedness,
Grew big with billows, great was their distress;
Yet was their courage greater; desperate men
Grow valianter with suffering: in their ken
Was a small island, thitherward they steer
Their weather-beaten barks, each plies his gear;
Some row, some pump, some trim the ragged sails,
All were employed and industry prevails.

(Thealma and Clearchus, 2203-2216.)

Marmion. When you are landed, and a little past
The Stygian ferry, you your eyes shall cast
And spy some busy at their wheel, and these
Are three old women, called the Destinies.

(Cupid and Psyche, iii. 259-262.)

Chamberlayne. But ere the weak Euriolus (for he
This hapless stranger was) again could be
By strength supported, base Amarus, who
Could think no more than priceless thanks was due
For all his dangerous pains, more beastly rude
Than untamed Indians, basely did exclude
That noble guest: which being with sorrow seen
By Ammida, whose prayers and tears had been
His helpless advocates, she gives in charge
To her Ismander—till that time enlarge
Her than restrained desires, he entertain
Her desolate and wandering friend. Nor vain
Were these commands, his entertainment being
Such as observant love thought best agreeing
To her desires.

(Pharonnida, IV. iii. 243-256.)

(The same remark applies here as to Browne. Some of these poets are indeed great "apostrophators," such things as "t'" for "to," "b'" for "by," and "'s" for "his" being common. But these uglinesses are generally resorted to in order to attain or keep the strict decasyllabic. Chalkhill (an actual Elizabethan, if he was anything) is less shy of at least apparent trisyllabics, as in "bĕĭng drīv|en," "ex|pĭăte thēir.|" The double rhyme of "sea" to "they" and "seas" to "please" is worth noticing; v. sup. Rule 34, p. [34].)

XXVI. The Stopped Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)

(a) Spenser (Mother Hubberd's Tale), v. sup. p. [62].

(b) Drayton (Heroical Epistles, "Suffolk to Margaret"):

We all do breathe upon this earthly ball,
Likewise one Heav'n encompasseth us all;
No banishment can be to us assigned
Who doth retain a true resolved mind;
Man in himself a little world doth bear,
His soul the monarch ever ruling there;
Wherever then his body doth remain
He is a king that in himself doth reign.

(Here all the characteristics of the eighteenth-century couplet may be found—the central cæsura or split, the balance of the two halves, the completion of sense in the couplet and almost in the line.)

(c) Fairfax (end couplets):

If fictious light I mix with Truth Divine
And fill these lines with other praise than Thine. (i. 2.)

We further seek what their offences be:
Guiltless I quit; guilty I set them free. (ii. 5.)

Thro' love the hazard of fierce war to prove,
Famous for arms, but famous more for love. (iii. 40.)

In fashions wayward, and in love unkind,
For Cupid deigns not wound a currish mind. (iv. 46.)

(Observe here the tendency, not merely to balance, but to positive antithesis, in the halves.)

(d) Beaumont, Sir John:

The relish of the Muse consists in rhyme:
One verse must meet another like a chime.
Our Saxon shortness hath peculiar grace
In choice of words fit for the ending-place,
Which leave impression in the mind as well
As closing sounds of some delightful bell.

(e) Sandys.

Compare the openings of Job I. and II.:

In Hus, a land which near the sun's uprise
And northern confines of Sabæa lies,
A great example of perfection reigned,
His name was Job, his soul with guilt unstained.