As I do live by food, I met a fool, Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, Shakespeare, As you like it. Note 95, stanza xciv. That once again in France unchristian wár-is-sèen, And Paris close besieged by heath'nish Sá-rà-cèn. In this sort of triple rhyme, the two last syllables are supernumerary; and where the verse is in our ordinary heroic decasyllabic iambic measure, they render the last, or fifth foot, instead of being an accented iambus, like "succéss," "résént," &c. that sort of compound foot of four syllables, in which the second is long in Greek and Latin, and accented in our language, and the other three short, or non-accented, which foot I believe is called by the prosodaists "the second poon" (-tiàn-wár-is-seen); for instance, like the Latin word "résólvère," which compou d foot is of course resolvable into an iambus and pyrrhichius. This therefore gives to the three last syllables the effect of a dactyl, as "Sáràcèn" resembles in this respect "sōlvěrě." When such three syllables consist in part or entirely of monosyllabic words, as “war-is-secn” in the first of the two lines above, they sound harsh to the ear if any one but the second of those monosyllables requires from its nature to be pronounced (as "seen" does in that line) with some degree of exer tion or emphasis, which, in our ordinary versification, would render it analogous to a long syllable in Greek and Latin. It was to show my sense of this harshness that, in stanza 95, I introduced the line "Mark how she hobbles now when she would prance." -Yet when such lines are employed with discretion, and with a view to particular effect, especially in rhyme, they are sometimes very amusing. Witness the general popularity of the two following lines in one of Lord Byron's poems: "But, Oh! ye lords of ladies in-tèlléctual, Inform us truly, have they not hèn-péck'd-you-àll?”* I may also cite these of Swift when speaking of his deafness, and which I quote from memory:-(They belong to the eight-syllable iambic measure): "For both my ears were fellow súffèrèrs, Which made my grandame al-ways stúff her ears." And in the same piece, "To t' other ear I found it cóming on, And thus I solve this hard phenomenon." And these of Butler, in the same last-mentioned kind of verse: "There was an ancient sage phìlósòphèr *Here the 5th foot is analogous to "resolvěrě." M Our dodecasyllabics, such as the two lines to which this note refers, terminating with the second peon, or a dactyl, whether in rhyme or blank verse, (differing entirely from our regular dodecasyllabic iambics or Alexandrines), correspond exactly to the versi sdruccioli of the Italians; whereas their regular heroic measure, consisting (strictly) of five iambic feet with an additional eleventh unaccented syllable, resembles as exactly our ordinary decasyllabics when they have the addition of one supernumerary or eleventh unaccented syllable. Of this, instances are very common in the blank verse of our tragedies, and occur sometimes in Milton; I doubt if at all in Thomson's Seasons: often in Dryden's rhymes: scarcely ever in Pope, unless when he means to give a burlesque turn to his verse, as in the two following distichs: "Whether the goddess sinner it, or saint-it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint-it.” "Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow, The rest is all but leather and prunella." Here is an instance from the Paradise Lost: "What time his pride Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspír-ing To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equall'd the Most High." Shakespeare seems, in a few of his plays, particularly in Henry VIII., to have studied to make use of this supernumerary or eleventh syllable. Of this a very striking example occurs in the beautiful soliloquy of Wolsey, which, consisting of twenty-two lines, has but five of those that are not hendecasyllables: So farewell to the little good you bear-me! The sweet aspect of princes, and his ru-in, More pangs and fears than war or woman know; (4) And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, (5) Never to hope again. I have also been reminded that such lines occur in almost every page of Beaumont and Fletcher. In several of the lines just cited, as well as in the two before taken from Pope, the monosyllables (pronouns, and other particles), being to be pronounced without emphasis, have the effect, to the ear, of those called enclitic in Greek and Latin grammar; as, "bear-me," "putsforth," "upon-him," "left-me," "hide-me," "hateye," "aspire-to," (Shakespeare); saint-it," "paintit,” (Pope); like “ Τοιοσδε,” σε Οἵδε,” σε Αχαιωνε, Τρωωνίε,” in Greek ; tecum," "vobiscum," "" tuusque," in Latin ; "parlerotti," "meco," in Italian ; "precarella," "haberos," in Spanish; "vendome," 66 66 66 passouse," in Portuguese. If we consider the words "day, he," in the third line of Wolsey's soliloquy, as one diphthongal syllable,* that line is only decasyllabic; and, indeed, the words " put forth," at the end of the line, are, I believe, most naturally read as an iambus * This is always (or almost always) the case where two, or even three vowels, though in distinct words, concur in this manner in Italian verse, as "se e il," in the first line of the Gerusalemme, "Canto l'arme pieto | se e il capitano," and not unfrequently in English, as in " glory above" in the abovementioned line of Milton. "To set himself in glo | ry a | bove his peers," And in "the eastern" in the following, "Now morn her rosy steps in the eastern clime." Par. Lost, b. v. v. l. This mode of writing, or scanning, without elision, has become much more common of late than with our older poets. |