Chaucer also frequently makes use of Enjambement, i.e. one verse runs on into the next owing to the close grammatical connection. Chaucer constructs longer sentences than was usual before his time; cp. BD 1-8. 9-15. 16-27 etc., HF 2-52. 53–65. 66-93 etc. The enjambement differs in character according as two closely or more loosely connected parts of a sentence are separated by the end of a verse. The pause, when wanting at the end of the verse, usually occurs at the beginning or in the middle of the following verse; cp. Not longe tyme to endure || Withoute slepe, BD 20f. To tellen shortly, whan that he || Was in the see, 68 f. I ferde the worse al the morwe || After, 99f. For as she prayde, so was don || In dede; 131f. ... for I certeynly || Ne can hem noght, HF 14 f. In which ther were mo images || Of gold, 121 f. That, shortly for to tellen, she || Becam his love, 242f. § 184. Sir Thopas. Chaucer has used short rimed couplets in stanzas only in Sir Thopas (CT. B 1902-2108), which is written in six-line anisometrical tail-rime stanzas And I wol telle you verrayment Al of a knyght was fair and gent His name was Sir Thopas etc. This is used also in 2029-46 and 2059-64, whilst in 2017-22, 2047-58, 2065-70 and 2081-2108 the couplets have different rimes, e.g. 2081 ff.: Now hold your mouth, par charitee, Bothe knight and lady free, And herkneth to my spelle; Of bataille and of chivalry And of ladyes love-drury Anon I wol yow telle. In one stanza (B 2023-28) the tail-rime lines have two beats (a a, b, a a, b) as in the Beves stanza (§ 154. 177): Yet listeth, lordes, to my tale, Merier than the nightingale, I wol yow roune How sir Thopas with sydes smale Priking over hill and dale Is come to toune. NOTE. Some scribes and the editions unnecessarily extend the tail-rime lines to three beats: | For now | I wol | you rounе Is come ageyn | to toune. In some stanzas Chaucer introduces a bob-verse; he has probably in his mind the Tristrem stanza and the thirteen-line alliterative stanza (§ 174 f.). This bob-verse is either before the second part of the stanza: a a, b 1 b b, c, B. 1980-86: 4 An elf-queen wol I love, ywis. For in this world no womman is In toune; Alle othere wommen I forsake, And to an elf-queen I me take By dale and eek by doune, or is used to connect a new part of a stanza: a a b a a, b 1 a a4 Cg (B 1987-1996), a a, b, a a bз 21 3 dd cз (B 1997-2006), a a b c c1 bз d1 c c1 dg (B 2007-2026) or a a, b, c c bз d1 e е dg, B 2071 to 2080: NOTE. His spere was of fyn cyprees, That bodeth werre, and nothing pees, The heed ful sharpe ygrounde; His stede was al dappel-gray, It gooth an ambel in the way So, lordes myne, heer is a fit! If ye wol any more of it, To telle it wol I fonde. By using so many different stanzas in such a short poem (200 verses) Chaucer did not aim at satirizing the lack of skill of the poets, who could not observe the same stanza form throughout a whole poem, as was earlier assumed, for, as noted in § 178, the poets are not here at fault, but only the scribes and reciters. On the contrary, as Kölbing (Engl. Stud. 11, 495 ff.) argues, Chaucer aimed at outdoing the popular poets in the artificiality of stanza formation and at making fun of them. At the same time he wished to show that these stanza forms hinder the regular flow of the narrative and tend to encourage a great use of meaningless phrases. § 185. Gower's, Barbour's and Lydgate's Short rimed Couplet. Gower's couplet in his Confessio Amantis is still more regular than Chaucer's. Since he never uses two consecutive unstressed syllables and never omits the anacrusis, his verse has always eight syllables when masculine, and nine syllables when feminine; thus it is exactly like the French eightsyllable verse; cp. C.A. I, 1 ff.: I may noght strecchen up to hevene And schal whil there is any man, To trete, as after shal be sene etc. We need not be astonished that Gower imitates French verse so exactly even in counting the syllables, for he is also the author of a French oem (c. 30000 verses) in the same measure. This m, Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Hominis), was discovered by G. C. Macaulay in 1896 and edited by him in 1899. Barbour's short rimed couplet is also fairly regular; cp. Bruce V 19 ff.: bai rowit fast with all þar mycht Till þat apon þam fell be nycht swa þat þai wist nocht quhar þai were, þat þai saw byrnand licht and schire. Lydgate, on the other hand, often omits the anacrusis; cp. Reason and Sensuality ed. Sieper (EETS. 84) 101 ff.: This is the lusty sesoun newe Which every thing causeth renewe $186. The Heroic Verse. In most of his poems Chaucer uses a verse, not known to English Literature before his time, viz. a verse with five feet. This is called the heroic verse, and when it is used in rimed couplets, the heroic couplet. Chaucer first used this verse in seven-line or eight-line stanzas (§ 194 f.), e.g. in The Compleynte unto Pitee, and in other short |