Chapter VIII: Part TWO: I. Four-Stress Verse (1)

English verse of four stresses is chiefly to be divided into two groups: that representing the primitive Germanic tendency to emphasize the element of accent rather than the counting of syllables, and that produced under foreign influence, showing comparative regularity in the number of syllables to the verse. The first group is made up of the various descendants of the original "long line," sometimes rimed and sometimes unrimed; the second group of forms of the familiar octosyllabic couplet. (Of modern verse only iambic measures are included here.)

A.--NON-SYLLABLE-COUNTING

The earliest English verse, like early Germanic verse generally, is based on the recurrence of strong accents, and is composed of a long line made up of two short lines, or half-lines, which are bound together by alliteration. As to the number of accents to be counted in the line, there are two theories, the "two-accent" and the "four-accent." According to the first, we should count two accents to the half-line, and four to the long line; according to the second, we should count four to the half-line and eight to the long line. The distinction is not so marked, however, as would appear at first thought; for the two-accent theorists recognize a considerable number of secondary accents in addition to the principal ones, while the four-accent theorists recognize half the accents as being commonly weaker than the other half.

The four-accent theory is that of Lachmann, represented chiefly in
more recent scholarship by ten Brink and Kaluza. Lachmann took, as
the typical Germanic line, such a verse as this from the
_Hildebrandlied_,--

"Garutun se iro guðhama: gurtun sih iro suert ana;"

but admitted that the Anglo-Saxon line was a departure from the
type in the direction of fewer accents. Ten Brink, however, found
the full number of accents in the typical Anglo-Saxon line. "It is
based upon a measure which belonged to the antiquity of all
Germanic races, namely, the line with eight emphatic syllables,
divided into equal parts by the cesura." (_English Literature_,
trans. Kennedy, vol. i. pp. 21, 22.) The principal representative
of the two-accent theory is Sievers, whose conclusions have been
pretty generally accepted by English and American scholars. He
admits that very many, perhaps most, Anglo-Saxon lines can be read
with eight accents, but shows that there is still a large
proportion (some eleven hundred in _Beowulf_) which cannot be so
read without wrenching the natural reading. On this subject, see
Westphal's _Allgemeine Metrik_, Sievers's _Altgermanische Metrik_,
Kaluza's _Der Altenglische Vers_, and the articles by Sievers,
Luick, and ten Brink in Paul's _Grundriss der Germanische
Philologie_.

Aside from the two-part structure of the long line, the number of accents, and the alliteration, Anglo-Saxon verse is marked by the usual coincidence of the principal accents with long syllables. The unaccented parts of the line vary in both the number and length of the syllables. In general, each half-line is divided into two feet, or measures; and, according to the structure of these feet, the ordinary half-lines of Anglo-Saxon verse have been reduced by Sievers to five fundamental types.

Type A is represented by such a half-line as "stiðum wordum."

Type B inverts the rhythm of A, as in the half-line "n[=e] wintersc[=u]r."

Type C is characterized by the juxtaposition of the two accents, as in the half-line "and forð gangan."

Type D commonly has only the accented syllable in the first foot, while the second foot is characterized by a sort of dactylic rhythm, as in the half-lines "s[=æ]l[=i]ðende" and "flet innanweard."

Type E inverts the rhythm of D, as in the half-line "gylp-wordum spræc."[16]

In all the types many variations are found. The beginning of the line may show anacrusis, and two short syllables may take the place of a long syllable; while an indeterminate number of light syllables may often be introduced before or after the principal accents.

Hafað [=u]s [=a]l[=y]fed _lucis auctor_,
þæt w[=e] m[=o]tun h[=e]r _merueri_
g[=o]dd[=æ]dum begietan _gaudia in celo_,
þ[=æ]r w[=e] m[=o]tun _maxima regna_
s[=e]can and gesittan _sedibus altis_,
lifgan in lisse _lucis et pacis_,
[=a]gan eardinga _almæ letitæ_,
br[=u]can bl[=æ]ddaga _blandem et mitem_
ges[=e]on sigora Fr[=e]an _sine fine_,
and him lof singan _laude perenne_
[=e]adge mid englum _Alleluia_.

(From the Anglo-Saxon _Ph[oe]nix_. ab. 700 A.D.)

These closing lines of the poem furnish an important opportunity to compare the Latin half-lines with those in Anglo-Saxon. Each half seems to be influenced by the metrical nature of the other; the Anglo-Saxon being a little more regular in the number of syllables than usual, the Latin less regular. Since, to the ear of the writer, the two halves of each verse were doubtless fairly equivalent, metrically, and since each of the Latin half-lines appears to have two accents, these combination verses have been thought to be an argument for the "two-accent" theory of Anglo-Saxon verse. On the other hand, the advocates of the four-accent theory would read the Latin half-lines with four stresses each, on the ground that nearly every syllable was stressed in the chanting of such religious verse (_lú-cís aúc-tór_, etc.).

See also the specimens on pp. 13 and 14, above.

Alle beon he bliþe Þat to my song lyþe:
A song ihc schal [gh]ou singe Of Mury þe kinge.
King he was bi weste So longe so hit laste.
Godhild het his quen, Fairer ne mi[gh]te non ben.
He hadde a sone þat het Horn, Fairer ne mi[gh]te non beo born,
Ne no rein upon birine, Ne sunne upon bischine.

(_King Horn_, ll. 1-12. ab. 1200-1250.)

The metre of _King Horn_ is very irregular, and has proved somewhat puzzling to scholars. It seems to be the direct result of the primitive "long line" broken into two halves by internal rime. The number of accents varies greatly: we may have verses which are easily read with two, such as--

"Into schupes borde
At the furst worde."

Yet these it is evident might also be read with three accents, as in the following couplet also:

"The se bigan to flowe,
And Horn child to rowe."

According as one reads the Anglo-Saxon verse with two or four accents to the half-line, he will regard the typical half-line of _King Horn_ as made up of two or four accents. If the fundamental number was two, the additional accented syllables were doubtless introduced under the influence of the French eight-syllable couplet. It is not difficult to see how the more regular (Latin or French) and the less regular (native) measures might have been confused, and soon have coalesced in popular use. Ten Brink, reading the _King Horn_ lines with four accents, speaks of them as "formed entirely on the Teutonic principle, with two accents upon the sonorous close of the verse, so that it appears to be an organic continuation of the chief form in Layamon and in Ælfred's _Proverbs_. This circumstance makes the poem exceptional among the early English romances." He also speaks of "an unmistakably strophic construction in the text as we have it." (_English Literature_, Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 227.)

Anon out of þe north est þe noys bigynes:
When boþe breþes con blowe upon blo watteres,
Ro[gh] rakkes per ros with rudnyng anunder,
Þe see sou[gh]ed ful sore, gret selly to here,
Þe wyndes on þe wonne water so wrastel togeder,
Þat þe wawes ful wode waltered so hi[gh]e
And efte busched to þe abyme, þat breed fysches,
Durst nowhere for ro[gh] arest at þe bothem.
When þe breth and þe brok and þe bote metten,
Hit watz a ioyles gyn, þat Ionas watz inne;
For hit reled on roun upon þe ro[gh]e yþes.

(_Patience_, ll. 137-147. ab. 1375.)

Til þe kny[gh]t com hym-self, kachande his blonk,
Sy[gh] hym byde at þe bay, his burne[gh] bysyde,
He ly[gh]tes luflych adoun, leve[gh] his corsour,
Brayde[gh] out a bry[gh]t bront, & bigly forth stryde[gh],
Founde[gh] fast þur[gh] the forþ, þer þe felle byde,
Þe wylde wat[gh] war of þe wy[gh]e with weppen in honde.
Hef hy[gh]ly þe here, so hetterly he fnast,
Þat fele ferde for þe freke[gh], lest felle hym þe worre
Þe swyn sette[gh] hym out on þe segge even,
Þat þe burne & þe bor were boþe upon hepe[gh],
In þe wy[gh]t-est of þe water, þe worre had þat oþer;
For þe mon merkke[gh] hym wel, as þay mette fyrst,
Set sadly þe scharp in þe slot even,
Hit hym up to þe hult, þat þe hert schyndered,
& he [gh]arrande hym [gh]elde, & [gh]edoun þe water, ful tyt;
A hundreth hounde[gh] hym hent,
Þat bremely con hym bite,
Burne[gh] him bro[gh]t to bent,
& dogge[gh] to dethe endite.

(_Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_, strophe xviii. ab. 1375.)

These two specimens, both doubtless the work of the same author (to whom are also attributed the _Pearl_ and _Cleanness_), represent the patriotic revival of the alliterative long line by contemporaries of Chaucer in the latter half of the fourteenth century. In _Sir Gawayne_ the rimeless long line is gathered into strophes, each of which concludes with four riming lines. (See above, p. 109.)

For analysis of this revived alliterative verse, see a valuable
article by Dr. Luick, _Die Englische Stabreimzeile im 14n, 15n, und
16n Jahrhundert_, in _Anglia_, vol. xi. pp. 392 and 553. Luick
analyzes not only the poems of the "Pearl poet," but also the _Troy
Book_, the _Alexander Fragments_, _William of Palerne_, _Joseph of
Arimathea_, _Morte Arthure_, and minor poems. He finds the _Troy
Book_ the most regular alliterative poem of Middle English, but in
all of the group a general tendency to preserve not only the early
laws of alliteration but also the "five types" of Sievers's
Anglo-Saxon metrics. Dr. Luick attributes the final decline of the
old measure in large degree to the falling away of the final
syllables in _-e_, etc.; without these numerous feminine endings
the primitive "long line" was impossible. This he regards as
regrettable, since the old alliterative verse, "growing up on
native soil with the language itself," represented the natural
accent-relations of the Germanic languages, especially the
recognition of two principal degrees of accent; whereas the modern
rimed verse requires the reduction of this to a uniform "tick-tack"
of alternating stress and non-stress.

He put on his back a good plate-jack,
And on his head a cap of steel,
With sword and buckler by his side;
O gin he did not become them weel!

(_Ballad of Bewick and Grahame_. In GUMMERE'S _English Ballads_, p. 176.)

The regular stanza of the old ballads was of this four-stress type, with extra light syllables admitted anywhere yet not in great numbers. More commonly, however, the fourth stress was lost from the second and fourth lines. (See p. 264, below.)

I thanke hym full thraly, and sir, I saie hym the same,
But what marvelous materes dyd this myron ther mell?
For all the lordis langage his lipps, sir, wer lame,
For any spirringes in that space no speche walde he spell.

(_York Mystery Plays: The Trial before Pilate_. Ed. L. T. SMITH, p. 322.)

As Gammer Gurton, with manye a wyde styche,
Sat pesynge and patching of Hodg her mans briche,
By chance or misfortune, as shee her geare tost,
In Hodge lether bryches her needle shee lost.

(_Gammer Gurton's Needle_, Prologue. 1566.)

In these specimens we have the later descendant of the long line as used in the early drama of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,--the "tumbling verse," regular in rhythm and rime, but indifferent to the number of syllables.[17] Sometimes, where most regular, as in lines 2-4 of the second specimen, the measure approximates closely to regular four-stress anapestic.

The time was once, and may againe retorne,
(For ought may happen that hath bene beforne),
When shepheards had none inheritaunce,
Ne of land, nor fee in sufferaunce,
But what might arise of the bare sheepe,
(Were it more or lesse) which they did keepe.
Well ywis was it with shepheards thoe:
Nought having, nought feared they to forgoe;
For Pan himselfe was their inheritaunce,
And little them served for their mayntenaunce.
The shepheards God so wel them guided,
That of nought they were unprovided;
Butter enough, honye, milke, and whay,
And their flockes' fleeces them to araye.

(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, May._ 1579.)

Spenser's use of the tumbling verse in the _Shepherd's Calendar_ was a part of his imitation of older forms for the sake of an uncultivated, bucolic effect. In his hands the irregular measure showed a tendency to reduce itself to regular ten-syllable lines, like the first two of the present specimen, which, by themselves, might easily be read as decasyllabic iambics. On this, see further under Five-Stress Verse. Spenser was perhaps the last cultivated poet to use the irregular measure, until we come to modern imitators of the early popular poetry. The following specimen is of this class.

It was up in the morn we rose betimes
From the hall-floor hard by the row of limes.
It was but John the Red and I,
And we were the brethren of Gregory;
And Gregory the Wright was one
Of the valiant men beneath the sun,
And what he bade us that we did,
For ne'er he kept his counsel hid.
So out we went, and the clattering latch
Woke up the swallows under the thatch.
It was dark in the porch, but our scythes we felt,
And thrust the whetstone under the belt.
Through the cold garden boughs we went
Where the tumbling roses shed their scent.
Then out a-gates and away we strode
O'er the dewy straws on the dusty road,
And there was the mead by the town-reeve's close
Where the hedge was sweet with the wilding rose.

(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Folk-Mote by the River._ In _Poems by the Way_. 1896.)

B.--SYLLABLE-COUNTING (OCTOSYLLABIC COUPLET)

The more regular four-stress verse, in rimed couplets showing a tendency to be octosyllabic, we have seen to be generally attributed to the influence of the French octosyllabics, which were in common use in late mediæval French poetry, such as that of Wace and Chrestien de Troyes.

According to Stengel (in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen
Philologie_), this octosyllabic French verse goes back to a lost
vulgar Latin verse; this view is opposed by Dr. C. M. Lewis, in his
_Foreign Sources of Modern English Versification_ (Yale Studies in
English, 1898), who finds its origin in the tetrameter of the Latin
hymns. Dr. Lewis also attributes to this Latin verse more direct
influence on English verse than is commonly assumed. Thus he finds
in it, rather than in the French octosyllabics, the model of the
verse of the _Pater Noster_, quoted below. The argument is briefly
this: the Latin verse was both accentual and syllabic; the French
verse was syllabic but not accentual; that of the _Pater Noster_ is
accentual but not syllabic; hence it is more nearly like the Latin
than the French. A stanza of the Latin tetrameter, cited by Dr.
Lewis from the hymn _Aurora lucis rutilat_, is as follows:

"Tristes erat apostoli
de nece sui Domini,
quem p[oe]na mortis crudeli
servi damnarunt impii."

Compare these lines from the _Brut_ of Wace:

"Adunt apela Cordeille
qui esteit sa plus joes ne fille;
pur ce que il l'aveit plus chiere
que Ragaü ne la premiere
quida que el e cuneüst
que plus chier des al tres l'eüst.
Cordeil le out bien escuté
et bien out en sun cuer noté
cument ses deus sorurs parloënt,
cument lur pere losengoënt."

The last four verses of this passage are cited by Schipper as
illustrating the regular iambic character of the French
octosyllabics; but Dr. Lewis regards the measure as purely
syllabic, with no regard for alternation of accents, and instances
the earlier lines of the passage as being quite as nearly anapestic
as iambic. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 107, and Lewis's monograph, as
cited above, pp. 73 ff. See also Crow: _Zur Geschichte des Kurzen
Reimpaares in Mittel Englisch._) Dr. Lewis's conclusion is: "We may
therefore sum up the whole history of our octosyllabic verse in
this way: we borrowed its number of accents from the Latin, but
owing to the vitality of our own native traditions we at first
borrowed nothing further; the syllabic character of the verse (so
far as it has been imported at all), came in only gradually,
against stubborn resistance; and it came not directly from the
Latin, but indirectly, through the French" (pp. 97, 98). Some of
these statements are open to question; but however we may interpret
the French verse of Wace and his contemporaries, it is obvious that
in English the influence of the Latin and the French poetry would
very naturally be fused, with no necessarily clear conception of
definite verse-structure. Whether under French or Latin influence,
however, the new tendency was for the more accurate counting of
syllables. We may see some suggestion of this in the verses of St.
Godric, quoted on p. 126, above, although they are not regularly
iambic. The poem on the "Eleven Pains of Hell" (in the _Old English
Miscellany_) shows the French influence clearly marked by the
language of its opening verses:

"Ici comencent les unze peynes
De enfern, les queus seynt pool v[ist]."

Ure feder þet in heovene is,
Þet is al soþ ful iwis!
Weo moten to theor weordes iseon,
Þet to live and to saule gode beon,
Þet weo beon swa his sunes iborene,
Þet he beo feder and we him icorene,
Þet we don alle his ibeden
And his wille for to reden.

(_The Pater Noster_, ab. 1175. In Morris's _Old English Homilies_, p. 55.)

This poem is sometimes said to show the first appearance of the octosyllabic couplet in English. It suggests the struggle between native indifference to syllable-counting and imitation of the greater regularity of its models. As Dr. Morris says of the next specimen: "The essence of the system of versification which the poet has adopted is, briefly, that every line shall have four accented syllables in it, the unaccented syllables being left in some measure, as it were, to take care of themselves." But this does not altogether do justice to the new regularity. Schipper says that of the first 100 lines of the poem 20 are perfectly regular. (See his notes in vol. i. p. 109.) In the following specimens we may trace the gradual growth of skill and accuracy.

ðo herde Abraham stevene fro gode,
newe tiding and selkuð bode:
'tac ðin sune Ysaac in hond
and far wið him to siðhinges lond.
and ðor ða salt him offren me,
on an hil, ðor ic sal taunen ðe.

(_Genesis and Exodus_, ll. 1285-1290. ab. 1250-1300.)

"Abid! abid!" the ule seide.
"Thu gest al to mid swikelede;
All thine wordes thu bi-leist,
That hit thincth soth al that thu seist;
Alle thine wordes both i-sliked,
An so bi-semed and bi-liked,
That alle tho that hi avoth,
Hi weneth that thu segge soth."

(_The Owl and the Nightingale_, ll. 835-842. Thirteenth century.)

Quhen þis wes said, þai went þare way,
and till þe toun soyn cumin ar thai
sa prevely bot noys making,
þat nane persavit þair cummyng.
þai scalit throu þe toune in hy
and brak up dures sturdely
and slew all, þat þai mycht ourtak;
and þai, þat na defens mycht mak,
fall pitwisly couth rair and cry,
and þai slew þame dispitwisly.

(BARBOUR: _Bruce_, v. 89-98. ab. 1375.)

[Gh]yf þou ever þurghe folye
Dydyst ou[gh]t do nygromauncye.
Or to the devyl dedyst sacryfyse
þurghe wychcraftys asyse,
Or any man [gh]af þe mede
For to reyse þe devyl yn dede,
For to telle, or for to wrey,
þynge þat was don awey;
[gh]yf þou have do any of þys,
þou hast synnede and do a mys,
And þou art wurþy to be shent
þurghe þys yche commaundement.[18]

(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Handlyng Synne_, ll. 339-350. ab. 1300.)

Herknet to me, gode men,
Wives, maydnes, and alle men,
Of a tale þat ich you wile telle,
Wo so it wile here, and þer-to duelle.
Þe tale is of Havelok i-maked;
Wil he was litel he yede ful naked:
Havelok was a ful god gome,
He was ful god in everi trome,
He was þe wicteste man at nede,
Þat þurte riden on ani stede.
Þat ye mowen nou y-here,
And þe tale ye mowen y-lere.
At the beginning of ure tale,
Fil me a cuppe of ful god ale;
And y wile drinken her y spelle,
Þat Crist us shilde alle fro helle!

(_Lay of Havelok the Dane._ ll. 1-16. ab. 1300.)

For lays and romances, both French and English, the four-stress couplet was an easy and favorite form. Compare the remarks of ten Brink: "We see how the short couplet, which is the standing form of the court-romance, was not only transmitted to it from the legendary, didactic, and historical poems, but was also suggested to it by those songs to which it was indebted for its own subject-matter. Other tokens indicate that a short strophe composed of eight-syllabled lines, with single or alternating rhymes, was a favorite form for many subjects in this _jongleur_ poetry.... The simple form of the short couplet offered to the romance-poet no scope to compete in metrical technique with the skilled court-lyrists. He could prove his art only within a limited portion of this field: in the treatment of the _enjambement_ and particularly of rhyme. The poet strove not only to form pure rhymes, but often to carry them forward with more syllables than were essential, and he was fond of all sorts of grammatical devices in rhyme." (_English Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. i. pp. 174, 175.)

The world stant ever upon debate,
So may be siker none estate;
Now here, now there, now to, now fro,
Now up, now down, the world goth so,
And ever hath done and ever shal;
Wherof I finde in special
A tale writen in the bible,
Which must nedes be credible,
And that as in conclusion
Saith, that upon division
Stant, why no worldes thing may laste,
Til it be drive to the laste,
And fro the firste regne of all
Unto this day how so befall
Of that the regnes be mevable,
The man him self hath be coupable,
Whiche of his propre governaunce
Fortuneth al the worldes chaunce.

(JOHN GOWER: Prologue to _Confessio Amantis_. Ed. PAULI, vol. i. pp. 22, 23. ab. 1390.)

O god of science and of light,
Apollo, through thy grete might,
This litel laste bok thou gye!
Nat that I wilne, for maistrye,
Here art poetical be shewed;
But, for the rym is light and lewed,
Yit make hit sumwhat agreable,
Though som vers faile in a sillable;
And that I do no diligence
To shewe craft, but o sentence.
And if, divyne vertu, thou
Wilt helpe me to shewe now
That in myn hede y-marked is--
Lo, that is for to menen this,
The Hous of Fame to descryve--
Thou shalt see me go, as blyve,
Unto the nexte laure I see,
And kisse hit, for hit is thy tree.

(CHAUCER: _House of Fame_, ll. 1091-1108. ab. 1385.)

It was Gower and Chaucer, in the fourteenth century, who brought the use of the eight-syllable couplet to the point of accuracy and perfection. Gower made it the vehicle of the interminable narrative of the _Confessio Amantis_, using it with regularity but with great monotony. Chaucer transformed it into a much more flexible form (with freedom of cesura, _enjambement_, and inversions), using it in about 3500 lines of his poetry (excluding the translation of the _Roman de la Rose_), but early leaving it for the decasyllabic verse. In modern English poetry this short couplet has rarely been used for continuous narrative of a serious character, except by Byron and Wordsworth.

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced choir below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before my eyes.

(MILTON: _Il Penseroso_, ll. 155-166. 1634.)

A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd, perverse antipathies,
In falling out with that or this
And finding something still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic
Than dog distract or monkey sick:
That with more care keep holyday
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to....
Rather than fail they will defy
That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend plum-porridge,
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose.

(SAMUEL BUTLER: _Hudibras_, Part I. 1663.)

Butler made the octosyllabic couplet so entirely his own, for the purposes of his jogging satiric verse, that ever since it has frequently been called "Hudibrastic." The ingenuity of his rimes added not a little to its effectiveness. In the _Spectator_ (No. 249) Addison said that burlesque poetry runs best "in doggrel like that of _Hudibras_, ... when a hero is to be pulled down and degraded;" otherwise in the heroic measure. He speaks also of "the generality" of Butler's readers as being "wonderfully pleased with the double rhymes."

How deep yon azure dyes the sky,
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide!
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight
Among the livid gleams of night.
There pass, with melancholy state,
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,
'Time was, like thee they life possest,
And time shalt be, that thou shalt rest.'

(THOMAS PARNELL: _A Night-Piece on Death_, ab. 1715.)

Mr. Gosse speaks of Parnell's employment of the octosyllabic couplet in this poem as "wonderfully subtle and harmonious." (_Eighteenth Century Literature_, p. 137.)

A Hare who, in a civil way,
Complied with everything, like Gay,
Was known by all the bestial train
Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain.
Her care was never to offend,
And every creature was her friend.
As forth she went at early dawn,
To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn,
Behind she hears the hunter's cries,
And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies:
She starts, she stops, she pants for breath;
She hears the near advance of death;
She doubles, to mislead the hound,
And measures back her mazy round:
Till, fainting in the public way,
Half dead with fear she gasping lay.

(JOHN GAY: _The Hare and Many Friends_, in _Fables_. 1727.)

Gay's use of the short couplet in his _Fables_ sometimes shows it at its best for narrative purposes.

My female friends, whose tender hearts
Have better learned to act their parts,
Receive the news in doleful dumps:
'The Dean is dead: (Pray what is trumps?)
Then, Lord have mercy on his soul!
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)
Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall:
(I wish I knew what king to call).
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend?
No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight:
And he's engaged to-morrow night:
My Lady Club will take it ill,
If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loved the Dean--(I lead a heart)
But dearest friends, they say, must part.
His time was come: he ran his race;
We hope he's in a better place.'

(SWIFT: _On the Death of Dr. Swift._ 1731.)

Swift made use of the octosyllabic couplet in nearly all his verse, and with no little vigor and originality. Mr. Gosse remarks: "His lines fall like well-directed blows of the flail, and he gives the octosyllabic measure, which he is accustomed to choose on account of the Hudibrastic opportunities it offers, a character which is entirely his own." (_Eighteenth Century Literature_, p. 153.)

Ye forms divine, ye laureat band,
That near her inmost altar stand!
Now soothe her to her blissful train
Blithe concord's social form to gain;
Concord, whose myrtle wand can steep
Even anger's bloodshot eyes in sleep;
Before whose breathing bosom's balm
Rage drops his steel, and storms grow calm;
Her let our sires and matrons hoar
Welcome to Britain's ravaged shore;
Our youths, enamored of the fair,
Play with the tangles of her hair,
Till, in one loud applauding sound,
The nations shout to her around,--
O how supremely thou art blest,
Thou, lady, thou shalt rule the West!

(COLLINS: _Ode to Liberty._ 1746.)

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

(BURNS: _Tam O'Shanter_, ll. 1-12. 1790.)

They chain'd us each to a column stone,
And we were three--yet, each alone;
We could not move a single pace,
We could not see each other's face,
But with that pale and livid light
That made us strangers in our sight:
And thus together--yet apart,
Fetter'd in hand, but joined in heart,
'Twas still some solace, in the dearth
Of the pure elements of earth,
To hearken to each other's speech,
And each turn comforter to each,
With some new hope, or legend old,
Or song heroically bold.

(BYRON: _The Prisoner of Chillon_, iii. 1816.)

A mortal song we sing, by dower
Encouraged of celestial power;
Power which the viewless Spirit shed
By whom we first were visited;
Whose voice we heard, whose hand and wings
Swept like a breeze the conscious strings,
When, left in solitude, erewhile
We stood before this ruined Pile,
And, quitting unsubstantial dreams,
Sang in this Presence kindred themes.

(WORDSWORTH: _White Doe of Rylstone_, canto vii. ll. 282-291. 1815.)

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu,
That on the field his targe he threw,
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide
Had death so often dash'd aside;
For, train'd abroad his arms to wield,
Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield....
Three times in closing strife they stood,
And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood;
No stinted draught, no scanty tide,
The gushing flood the tartans dyed.
Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain,
And shower'd his blows like wintry rain;
And, as firm rock, or castle-roof,
Against the winter shower is proof,
The foe, invulnerable still,
Foil'd his wild rage by steady skill;
Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand
Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand,
And backward borne upon the lea,
Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee.

(SCOTT: _The Lady of the Lake_, canto v. st. xv. 1810.)

How this their joy fulfilled might move
The world around I know not well;
But yet this idle dream doth tell
That no more silent was the place,
That new joy lit up every face,
That joyous lovers kissed and clung,
E'en as these twain, that songs were sung
From mouth to mouth in rose-bowers,
Where hand in hand and crowned with flowers,
Folk praised the Lover and Beloved
That such long years, such pain had proved;
But soft, they say, their joyance was
When midst them soon the twain did pass,
Hand locked in hand, heart kissing heart,
No more this side of death to part--
No more, no more--full soft I say
Their greetings were that happy day,
As though in pensive semblance clad;
For fear their faces over-glad
This certain thing should seem to hide,
That love can ne'er be satisfied.

(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise_; _The Land East of the Sun_. 1870.)

FOOTNOTES:

[16] For Sievers's analysis of Anglo-Saxon verse into these types, see his articles in Paul and Braune's _Beiträge_, vols. x. and xii.; and the brief statement in the Appendix to Bright's _Anglo-Saxon Reader_, from which the examples just quoted are taken.

[17] The term "tumbling verse," used for obvious reasons, appears at least as early as 1585, when King James, in his _Reulis and Cautelis_ for Scotch Poetry, said: "For flyting, or Invectives, use this kynde of verse following, callit Rouncefallis, or Tumbling verse:

'In the hinder end of harvest upon Alhallow ene, Quhen our gude nichtbors rydis (nou gif I reid richt) Some bucklit on a benwod, and some on a bene, Ay trott and into troupes fra the twylicht.'"

And again: "Ye man observe that thir Tumbling verse flowis not on that fassoun, as utheris dois. For all utheris keipis the reule quhilk I gave before, To wit, the first fute short the secound lang, and sa furth. Quhair as thir hes twa short, and ane lang throuch all the lyne, quhen they keip ordour: albeit the maist part of thame be out of ordour, and keipis na kynde nor reule of Flowing, and for that cause are callit Tumbling verse."

(Arber Reprint, pp. 68, 63, 64.)

See further on the persistent use of this rough measure in English, side by side with the more regular syllable-counting verse, Schipper's observations and examples in the _Grundriss der Englische Metrik_, pp. 109 ff. As a modern example Schipper cites one of Thackeray's ballads:

"This Mary was pore and in misery once, And she came to Mrs. Roney it's more than twelve monce. She adn't got no bed, nor no dinner nor no tea, And kind Mrs. Roney gave Mary all three."

[18] This poem of Robert Manning's was a translation of a Norman French work, Waddington's _Manuel des Pechiez_. The following is the original of the passage here reproduced:

"Si vus unques par folye Entremeissez de nigremancie, Ou feites al deable sacrifise, Ou enchantement par fol aprise; Ou, a gent de tiel mester Ren donastes pur lur jugler, Ou pur demander la verite De chose qe vous fut a dire,-- Fet avez apertement Encuntre ceo commandement; Ceo est grant mescreaunceie, Duter de ceo, ne devez mie."

(Furnivall ed. of Manning, p. 12. ll. 1078-1089.)

II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE

The five-stress or decasyllabic verse (iambic pentameter) is so much more widely used in modern English poetry than any other verse-form, that its history is of special interest. It is curious that a form so completely adopted as the favorite of English verse should be borrowed rather than native; but, the syllable-counting principle once being admitted, there is nothing in five-stress verse inconsistent with native English tendencies. A very great part of such verse has really only four full accents, and this we have seen to be the number of accents in the native English verse. On this point, see further remarks in connection with the specimen from Spenser, p. 180 below.

This verse appears in two great divisions, rimed (the decasyllabic couplet) and unrimed (blank verse). The rimed form was the earlier, the unrimed being merely a modification of it under the influence of other unrimed metres.

A.--THE DECASYLLABIC COUPLET

Lutel wot hit anymon,
hou love hym haveþ ybounde,
Þat for us oþe rode ron,
ant boht us wiþ is wounde.
Þe love of hym us haveþ ymaked sounde,
ant ycast þe grimly gost to grounde.
Ever & oo, nyht & day, he haveþ us in is þohte,
He nul nout leose þat he so deore bohte.

* * * * *

His deope wounde bledeþ fast,
of hem we ohte munne!
He haþ ous out of helle ycast,
ybroht us out of sunne;
ffor love of us his wonges waxeþ þunne,
His herte blod he [gh]af for al mon kunne.
Ever & oo, etc.

(Song from Harleian MS. 2253. In BÖDDEKER'S _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. 231.)

This early religious lyric is of interest as containing the first known use of the five-stress couplet in English. Here it is only in a few lines that the couplet occurs, and so sporadic an occurrence should perhaps be regarded as due to nothing more than chance. See Schipper, vol. i. p. 439, and ten Brink's _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p. 173 f. Ten Brink calls attention to another fairly regular five-stress verse, found on p. 253 of Wright's _Political Songs_:

"For miht is riht, the loud is laweless."[19]

And, as for me, though that my wit be lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And in myn herte have hem in reverence;
And to hem yeve swich lust and swich credence,
That ther is wel unethe game noon
That from my bokes make me too goon,
But hit be other up-on the haly-day,
Or elles in the joly tyme of May;
Whan that I here the smale foules singe,
And that the floures ginne for to springe,
Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun!
Now have I therto this condicioun
That, of alle the floures in the mede,
Than love I most these floures whyte and rede,
Swiche as men callen daysies in our toun.
To them have I so greet affeccioun.

(CHAUCER: _Legend of Good Women_, Prologue, ll. 29-44. Text A. ab. 1385.)

A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a povre Persoun of a toun;
But riche he was of holy thoght and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche;
His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversitee ful pacient;...
He wayted after no pompe and reverence,
Ne maked him a spyced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, and first he folwed it himselve.

(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, ll. 477-484, 525-528. ab. 1385.)

With Chaucer we have the first deliberate use of the five-stress couplet, in continuous verse, known to English poetry. His earliest use of the pentameter line was in the _Compleynt to Pitee_ (perhaps written about 1371), in the "rime royal" stanza; his earliest use of the pentameter couplet was in the _Legend of Good Women_, usually dated 1385. From that time the measure became almost his only instrument, and we find altogether in his poetry some 16,000 lines in the couplet, besides some 14,000 more in rime royal. Too much praise cannot be given Chaucer's use of the couplet. Although it was an experiment in English verse, it has perhaps hardly been used since his time with greater skill. He used a variety of cesuras (see ten Brink's monograph for the enumeration of them), a very large number of feminine endings (such as the still pronounced final-_e_ and similar syllables easily provided), free inversions in the first foot and elsewhere, and many run-on lines (in a typical 100 lines some 16 run-on lines and 7 run-on couplets appearing). The total effect is one of combined freedom and mastery, of fluent conversational style yet within the limits of guarded artistic form. "Much more regularly than the French and Provençals, and yet without pedantic stiffness, he made his verse advance with a sort of iambic gait, and he was therefore able to give up and exchange for a freer arrangement the immovable cesura, which these poets had always made to coincide with a foot-ending." (Ten Brink, in _English Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. ii. p. 48.) On Chaucer's verse, see, besides the monograph of ten Brink already cited, Lounsbury's _Studies in Chaucer_, vol. iii. pp. 297 ff., and Schipper, vol. i. pp. 442 ff.

The common assumption is, that Chaucer borrowed the pentameter
couplet directly from French poetry. On the history of this in
France, see Stengel, in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen
Philologie_.[20] The decasyllabic verse was fairly common in France
in the fourteenth century (being called "_vers commun_" according to
Stengel); but in the form of the couplet it was not. Professor
Skeat says: "To say that it [Chaucer's couplet] was derived from the
French ten-syllable verse is not a complete solution of the mystery;
for nearly all such verse is commonly either in stanzas, or else a
great number of successive lines are rimed together; and these, I
believe, are rather scarce. After some search I have, however,
fortunately lighted upon a very interesting specimen, among the
poems of Guillaume de Machault, a French writer whom Chaucer is
known to have imitated, and who died in 1377. In the edition of
Machault's poems edited by Tarbé, Reims and Paris, 1849, p. 89,
there is a poem of exactly this character, of no great length, but
fortunately dated; for its title is 'Complainte écrite après la
bataille de Poitiers et avant le siège de Reims par les Anglais'
(1356-1358). The first four lines run thus:

"'A toy, Henry, dous amis, me complain,
Pour ce que ne cueur ne mont ne plein;
Car a piet suy, sans cheval et sans selle,
Et si n'ay mais esmeraude, ne belle.'

... Now as Chaucer was taken prisoner in France in 1359, he had an
excellent opportunity for making himself acquainted with this poem,
and with others, possibly, in a similar metre, which have not come
down to us." (_The Prioress's Tale_, Introduction, pp. xix, xx.)
Paris has shown that the real date of the poem in question was
1340; the title quoted by Skeat is Tarbé's modern French caption.
Professor Kittredge has called my attention to the fact that there
is another poem of Machault's in the same metre (P. Paris's edition
of _Voir-Dit_, p. 56), and also a poem by Froissart, the "Orloge
Amoureus."

Ten Brink calls attention to the possibility of the influence upon
Chaucer's couplet of the Italian hendecasyllabic verse. The
_Compleynte to Pitee_, it is true, was written probably before the
Italian journey of 1372-1373; but in Italy the "full significance"
of the metre may have become clear to Chaucer. "After that journey
the heroic verse appears almost exclusively as his poetic
instrument.... Of still greater significance is the fact that
Chaucer's heroic verse differs from the French decasyllabic in all
the particulars in which the Italian hendecasyllabic departs from
the common source, and approaches the verse of Dante and Boccaccio
as closely as the metre of a Germanic language can approach a
Romance metre. It may be added also that the heroic verse in the
_Compleynte to Pitee_ stands nearer the French decasyllabic than
that of the _Troilus_ or the _Canterbury Tales_."

Dr. Lewis, on the other hand, in _The Foreign Sources of English
Versification_, would minimize the foreign sources of Chaucer's
couplet. Not only the unaccentual character of the French verse is
opposed to the theory of the French source, but also, he believes,
the fixed cesura. "In the English verse there is no such thing:
indeed there is no cesura at all, in the French sense of the
word.... Schipper relegates to a foot-note the suggestion that our
heroic verse may have originated in a different way, either through
an abridgment of the alexandrine or through an extension of the
four-foot line. This is of course more nearly the true view, but it
is entirely immaterial which of the last two explanations we hit
upon. Accentual verses of four, six, and seven feet were already
familiar long before Chaucer's time. They exhibited a more or less
regular alternation of arsis and thesis. To devise a verse which
should be essentially the same in principle, but should have five
accents instead of four, six, or seven, was a task that Chaucer's
genius might well achieve unaided" (pp. 98, 99).

It is quite possible that a combination of all these views may be
nearest the truth. The objection to the French influence on the
ground of the syllabic (non-accentual) quality of the French verse
does not seem to be serious, since any imitation of French verse by
an Englishman would be likely to take on the accentual form; and,
that once done, the need for the fixed cesura would vanish. But it
is worth while to emphasize the fact that the genius of English
verse was not so averse to the formation of a decasyllabic
five-stress line as to make it a serious innovation. This view is
further emphasized by the next specimen.

Is not thilke the mery moneth of May,
When love-lads masken in fresh aray?
How falles it, then, we no merrier bene,
Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene?
Our bloncket liveryes bene all to sadde
For thilke same season, when all is ycladd
With pleasaunce: the grownd with grasse, the Woods
With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds.
... Tho to the greene Wood they speeden hem all,
To fetchen home May with their musicall:
And home they bringen in a royall throne,
Crowned as king: and his Queene attone
Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend
A fayre flocke of Faeries, and a fresh bend
Of lovely Nymphs. (O that I were there,
To helpen the Ladyes their Maybush beare!)
Ah! Piers, bene not thy teeth on edge, to thinke

(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, May_. 1579.)

This specimen is properly not in five-stress verse, but in irregular four-stress ("tumbling verse"); compare the specimen on p. 158, above. We have a close approach, however, to the regular five-stress verse, in such lines as the fourth, fifth, eleventh, thirteenth, and seventeenth. On this and similar passages in the _Shepherd's Calendar_, as illustrating the close relation between the native measure and the newer one, see an article by Professor Gummere, in the _American Journal of Philology_, vol. vii. pp. 53ff. Other verses cited by Dr. Gummere are:

"Whose way is wildernesse, whose ynne Penaunce."

"And dirks the beauty of my blossomes rownd."

"That oft the blood springeth from woundes wyde."

"There at the dore he cast me downe hys pack."

It is pointed out that the regular five-stress line, when having--as very frequently--only four full stresses (two or three light syllables coming together, especially at the pause), can hardly be distinguished from certain forms of the native four-stress verse. See also the Eclogues for February and August, in the _Shepherd's Calendar_. Dr. Gummere's conclusion is, that "practically all the elements of Anglo-Saxon verse are preserved in our modern poetry, though in different combinations, with changed proportional importance."

But the false Fox most kindly played his part;
For whatsoever mother-wit or art
Could work, he put in proof: no practice sly,
No counterpoint of cunning policy,
No reach, no breach, that might him profit bring,
But he the same did to his purpose wring....
He fed his cubs with fat of all the soil,
And with the sweet of others' sweating toil;
He crammed them with crumbs of benefices,
And fill'd their mouths with meeds of malefices.
... No statute so established might be,
Nor ordinance so needful, but that he
Would violate, though not with violence,
Yet under color of the confidence
The which the Ape repos'd in him alone,
And reckon'd him the kingdom's corner-stone.

(SPENSER: _Mother Hubbard's Tale_, ll. 1137-1166. 1591.)

Spenser's use of the heroic couplet for the _Mother Hubbard's Tale_ is the earliest instance of its adoption in English for satirical verse,--a purpose for which its later history showed it to be peculiarly well fitted.

Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath,
From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath:
Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves,
Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives:
Many would praise the sweet smell as she past,
When 'twas the odor which her breath forth cast;
And there for honey bees have sought in vain,
And, beat from thence, have lighted there again.
About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone,
Which, lighten'd by her neck, like diamonds shone.

(MARLOWE: _Hero and Leander_, ll. 17-26. ab. 1590, pub. 1598.)

Too popular is tragic poesy,
Straining his tip-toes for a farthing fee,
And doth beside on rimeless numbers tread;
Unbid iambics flow from careless head.
Some braver brain in high heroic rhymes
Compileth worm-eat stories of old times:
And he, like some imperious Maronist,
Conjures the Muses that they him assist.
Then strives he to bombast his feeble lines
With far-fetch'd phrase.-- ...
Painters and poets, hold your ancient right:
Write what you will, and write not what you might:
Their limits be their list, their reason will.
But if some painter in presuming skill
Should paint the stars in centre of the earth,
Could ye forbear some smiles, and taunting mirth?

(JOSEPH HALL: _Virgidemiarum Libri VI._, bk. i. satire 4. 1597.)

Joseph Hall was the most vigorous satirist of the group of Elizabethans who, in the last decade of the sixteenth century, were imitating the satires of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius. Hall's satires have a curiously eighteenth-century flavor, and his couplets are frequently very similar to those of the age of Pope. Thus Thomas Warton (in his _History of English Poetry_) observed of Hall that "the fabric of the couplets approaches to the modern standard;" and Anderson, who edited the _British Poets_ in 1795, said: "Many of his lines would do honor to the most harmonious of our modern poets. The sense has generally such a pause, and will admit of such a punctuation at the close of the second line, as if it were calculated for a modern ear." On the verse of these Elizabethan satirists in general, see _The Rise of Formal Satire in England_, by the present editor (_Publications of the Univ. of Penna_.).

On the other hand, the verse of the satires of John Donne, from which the following specimen is taken, is the roughest and most difficult of all the satires of the group. The reputation of Donne's satires for metrical ruggedness has affected unjustly that of his other poetry and that of the Elizabethan satires in general. Dryden said: "Would not Donne's Satires, which abound with so much wit, appear more charming if he had taken care of his words and of his numbers?" (_Essay on Satire._) And Pope "versified" two of them, so as to bring them into a form pleasing to the ear of his age.

Therefore I suffered this: towards me did run
A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun
E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came:
A thing which would have posed Adam to name;
Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies,
Than Afric's monsters, Guiana's rarities;...
Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been
Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seen)
Become tufftaffaty; and our children shall
See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all.
This thing hath travelled, and faith, speaks all tongues,
And only knoweth what to all states belongs.

(JOHN DONNE: _Satire iv._ ll. 17 ff. ab. 1593.)

This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas,
And utters it again when God doth please.
He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares
At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;
And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve.
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.
He can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he
That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;
This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honorable terms: nay, he can sing
A mean most meanly, and, in ushering,
Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet;
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.

(SHAKSPERE: _Love's Labor's Lost_, V. ii. 315-330. ab. 1590.)

The use of rimed couplets in Shakspere's dramas is especially characteristic of his earlier work. In this play, _Love's Labor's Lost_, Dowden says, "there are about two rhymed lines to every one of blank verse" (_Shakspere Primer_, p. 44). In the late plays, on the other hand, rime disappears almost altogether. It will be observed that while Shakspere's heroic verse is usually fairly regular, with not very many run-on lines, it yet differs in quality from that of satires. The dramatic use moulds it into different cadences, and the single couplet is, perhaps, less noticeably the unit of the verse.

Shepherd, I pray thee stay. Where hast thou been?
Or whither goest thou? Here be woods as green
As any; air likewise as fresh and sweet
As where smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet
Face of the curled streams; with flowers as many
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any;
Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells,
Arbors o'ergrown with woodbines, caves, and dells;
Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes, to make many a ring
For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,--
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes
She took eternal fire that never dies;
How she conveyed him softly in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep
Head of old Latmus, where she stoops each night,
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest.

(FLETCHER: _The Faithful Shepherdess_, I. iii. ab. 1610.)

Fletcher uses the couplet in this drama with a freedom hardly found elsewhere until the time of Keats; see the remark of Symonds, quoted p. 210, below.