taining four bars, which is used in a large number of ME. romances, legends etc. down to the time. of Chaucer and Gower. This is directly connected with a Latin or French model, viz. the Latin Hymn-verse (dimeter iambicus acatalectus) or the French verse of eight syllables. In Latin hymns the dimeter iambicus acatalectus was much favoured; cp. the old hymn Vení creátor spíritús Mentés tuórum vísitá, or the Christmas hymn of Sedulius (c. 400): A sólis órtus cárdiné Christúm canámus príncipém can Here the foundation of the rhythm is based not on the quantity, as in the classical period, but on the normal stress of the words. Thus the verse no longer consists of a succession of long and short syllables, but of stressed and unstressed syllables. Only at the beginning of the verse the accent be shifted, as in English and German verse, so that the final syllable of a disyllabic word. may bear the rhythmical stress, whilst in ordinary speech the stress is on the first syllable, e.g. vení, mentés, implé - Christúm, natum. At the end of the verse there is generally a word of three syllables with a beat on the first and third syllables: spíritús, vísitá, cárdiné etc. – § 120. b) The French Verse of Eight Syllables. This verse of eight syllables was much used in Old French poetry, especially in (short) rimed couplets. At the end there might be an additional syllable, viz. in feminine endings. Thus with masculine endings there are eight syllables and with feminine endings nine syllables, ep. Roman de la Rose, 1393 ff.: Il i avoit de flors plenté Et pervenche fresche et novele. § 121, c) The Middle English Short Rimed Couplet. This French short rimed couplet with its masculine and feminine endings was imitated in ME. poetry. It was used for romances and for religious and didactic verse. As the oldest example of this measure a poetic paraphrase of the Paternoster (Old English Homilies ed. Morris EETS. 29, 55-71) is generally quoted. It dates from the middle of the twelfth century. But the metre is very irregular, the thesis is often disyllabic. Compare vv. 1-8: Ure | feder bet in | heouene | is, þet | is al | sođ | ful i|wis, weo | moten to þes | wordes iseon and his wille | for to | reden, The verse of The Owl and the Nightingale (1794 verses), c. 1200, is much more regular. Cp. vv. 1-20: Ich wes in one | sumere | dale, In | one | swipe | dyele | hale I herde ich | holde | grete | tale An vle and one | nyhte gale. 5 þat playd wes | stif and | starc and | strong, Sum | hwile | softe and | lud among, And eyber ayeyn | oper | swal 10 pat alre wrste | pat hi | wuste, And | hure and | hure of obres | songe In one hurne of | one | beche 15 And sat vp | one | vayre | bowe Imeynd myd spire and grene | segge. § 122. Havelok. The difference between the normal ME. short rimed couplet, the freer couplet of Brut and King Horn and the more regular Latin and French verse, will be best seen by examining an extract from Havelok, which is slightly later than King Horn. Cp. Schipper's Übungsbuch, 8th ed., p. 125. 27 It was a king by | are dawes that in his time | gode | lawes he dede maken and | ful wel holde. wyues, maydnes, | prestes and clerkes, 35 he louede | god with | al his | micht and heye hengen on galwe | tre, for hem ne yede | gold ne | fe. The scheme of the verse is, therefore: (x) xxl xxxxx(x), i.e. the verse falls into four independent like feet, each containing an arsis and a thesis. Each arsis must be represented by a stressed syllable, and each thesis by an unstressed syllable. These syllables may be long or short. But two short syllables may be slurred in the arsis (louede 30, 35, 37), and the thesis may consist of two unstressed syllables, of which one generally loses its independence by elision or by some other form of weakening (kirkę and 36, made hem 38, madẹ he 39, 41 ouęral 38, maken and 29, prestes and 33, wreileres and 39, vt|lawęs and 41, hengen on 43 - wrobberęs 39). The thesis is rarely omitted, e.g. Knicht | bonde man and swain 32. The anacrusis is often wanting, e.g. 31-33, 42. At the beginning of the verse compounds may have a shifted accent, i.e. the first beat may fall on a syllable, which otherwise has only a subsidiary stress (riht wise 37, vt\láwes 41, wrei| éres 39). NOTE. An attempt by Crow, Zur Geschichte des kurzen Reimpaares im Mittelenglischen, Göttingen 1892, to establish laws for the use of the anacrusis in the short rimed couplet has not been successful (cp. Engl. Stud. 18, 225 ff.). § 123. The Difference between Verse of four Bars and Verse of four Members. This regular short rimed couplet is distinguished from the verse (of four members) of Brut and King Horn chiefly by the fact that two beats may no longer fall on two consecutive syllables of the same word; that a syllable at the end of the verse preceded by a long syllable no longer counts as a member of the verse, but the verse-ending may be masculine or feminine without any alteration in the rhythm or filling' of the rest of the verse. This can be seen from the examples quoted. |