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The four beats are not, of course, of equal strength, but graduated according to the sentence stress of ordinary speech; but they are independent, and not united to form feet of two or of three members as in OE. and early ME. verse. The verse is therefore, not one of 'four members', but of four feet', or, let us say, of 'four bars', since the four beats fall at about equal intervals.

Since each foot begins with an arsis and the anacrusis may be present or absent according to the poet's taste, the verse is not iambic but trochaic.

Schipper (EM I, 259; Grdr. p. 178) allows a caesura in the verse of four bars, generally after the second arsis. But, even though a pause occasionally occurs within the verse, one can scarcely speak of a real caesura in such a short

verse.

§ 124. The Difference between the Middle English Short Rimed Couplet and the Latin and French Verse of Eight Syllables.

The ME. verse of four bars (the regular short rimed couplet) is distinguished from Latin and French verse by the fact that the number of the syllables is not fixed. Latin verse has always 8, French verse 8 (masc. ending) or 9 (fem. ending) syllables. In the ME. verse of four bars, however, the number of syllables varies between 7 and 12, according as the anacrusis is present or absent,

the verse-ending masculine or feminine, and the thesis monosyllabic or disyllabic. The only ME. poet, who strictly followed his French model, was Gower in his Confessio Amantis (§ 185).

$ 125. The Short Rimed Couplet of Genesis and Exodus.

The short rimed couplet of the ME. Genesis and Exodus must be specially mentioned. Here the verse of four bars is already regular, cp. 1325 ff. 1325 Ysaac was leid pat auter on

so men sulden holocaustum don,
and Abraham dat swerd ut drog
and was redi to slon him nog,
oc an angél it him forbed
1330 and barg de child fro de dead.
do wurd Abraham rigt ifagen
for Ysaac bileaf unslagen.
biaften bak, as he nam kep,
faste in dornes he sag a sep,

1335 dat an angél dor inne dede:

it was brent on Ysaac stede.

Here, as in Havelok, we have a regular interchange of arsis and thesis, but whilst in Havelok feminine endings are as common as, or commoner than, masculine endings, in Genesis and Exodus 732% of the verses have masculine monosyllabic endings (me: be old: told wel del etc.);

24% have disyllabic masculine endings ( gode : dede (pret.) stede (place) taken maken

bode

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fagen: slagen

cumen: numen

:

wune sune

tale: smale etc.) and only 21/2 % have feminine

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endings ( pinge: kinge - iwisse: blisse-blinne: inne loken boken mildelike: witterlike etc.). This was shown by Pilch, Umwandlung des altenglischen Alliterationsverses in den mittelenglischen Reimvers, Königsberg 1904.

This strikingly rare use of feminine endings cannot be accidental. The poet has evidently avoided them, because he felt them to contain two beats or members in accordance with the older verse. In the few cases, in which he was obliged to use words of the form -- as the last member of the verse, the last syllable is always an unstressed e or en, never a full final -es, -ed, -er etc. This peculiarity of the poet of Genesis and Exodus, which, as we shall see later (§ 128), corresponds to the practice of the first half-line of the Poema Morale, is in itself a full proof that feminine verse-ending was felt to be an ending of two members well into the thirteenth century.

126. The Septenary Rimed Couplet.

In Brut, Proverbs of Alfred and King Horn the alliterative long line has become a short rimed couplet, since the caesura was connected with the end of the verse by rime. This verse under French influence became a regular verse of four bars. But we also find in early ME. poems a long rimed couplet, called the septenary rimed couplet. This was probably directly imitated from Latin models, but, on the other hand, it clearly bears

some relation to the alliterative long line and may have been derived from it by the introduction of rimes connecting the long lines.

127. The Latin Septenary.

The Latin model of this measure was according to Schipper (EM. I, 89ff.; Grdr. p. 186) the socalled tetrameter iambicus catalecticus, or septenary

O crux frutex salvificus | vivo fonte rigatus,

Quem flos exornat fulgidus, | fructus fecundat gratus. But this iambic septenary in medieval Latin poetry is rarer than the trochaic septenary and is found later. An example of the trochaic septenary can be given from the songs of Walter Mapes: ×××××××1××××××, e. g.

Meum est propositum | in taberna mori,
Vinum sit appositum | morientis ori,

Ut dicant cum venerint | angelorum chori:
Deus sit propitius | huic potatori.

It is therefore better to derive the English septenary, which has generally a trochaic rhythm like the short rimed couplet (§ 123), from this trochaic septenary, as Schipper does (Grdr. p. 186). We then get the scheme of the English septenary (×)×××××××1 (x)××××××. Here an anacrusis may occur before each half of the verse. In any case the regular English septenary agrees with the Latin iambic and trochaic septenary in one point the first half-verse has a masculine ending and the second

a feminine ending. Since we must look on feminine endings according to the practice of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as two members (see § 125), we have the following scheme for the regular English septenary, the first example of which we find in the Poema Morale, (x)××××111(×)|××××11.

§ 128. The Poema Morale.

The Poema Morale begins:

a

│Ich æm | þen elder | ben ich | wes Ich | wælde | more | þanne ic| dude!

|

wintre | and a lórè). mi | wit ah | to | ben|

mórèl.

Wel lange ic | habbe | child ibeon a weorde end | ech

|

a | dédè

tu | 3yng i| eom a | rédè end | 3yet me | pincd ic | lédè] sore ic | me a drédè

peh ic | beo a | wintre | eald:
Vnnut | lif ic | habb illæd
banne ic❘ me bi penche | wel
Mest al bat ic | habbe y don
Wel late ic | habbe | me bi poht:
Fele ydele | word ic | habbe i queden

ys

| idel nesse and | chílcè. bute me | god do | mílcè

sydđen ic | speke

cúpè

And fale | gunge | dede ido: be | me of pinchet | núpèl. | There is here, as in the Latin model and in the short couplet of Havelok a regular interchange of arsis and thesis, i.e. a rhythm of equal bars. The thesis is never absent and is generally monosyllabic; where the thesis is disyllabic one of the unstressed syllables is suppressed by elision or slurring (pannę ic 2, 6, langẹ ic 3, sorẹ ic 6, latę ic 8, habbę y 7, 9, dedę i- 10, weordę end 3, nessę and bute me 8, sydden ic 9, ydele 9; the elision

7

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