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Title: A History of English Versification

Author: Jakob Schipper

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Language: English

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A HISTORY OF
ENGLISH VERSIFICATION

BY

JAKOB SCHIPPER, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA
MEMBER OF THE KAISERLICHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN, VIENNA
HON. D.LITT. OXON.; HON. LITT.D. CANTAB.
HON. LL.D. EDINBURGH AND ABERDEEN
HONORARY MEMBER OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1910

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE

PREFACE

It is now more than twenty years since a reviewer of the author’s Englische Metrik, in three volumes, expressed the opinion that ‘an English translation of it would do a service to English philology’. At that time, however, it seemed doubtful whether such a voluminous work, which probably would have interested only a comparatively small circle of English scholars, would have found a market. Even in Germany, although the work was favourably reviewed, and although at the time when it appeared great interest was felt in metrical research, the sale was comparatively slow.

Much livelier, on the other hand, was the demand for an abridged edition of it which appeared under the title Grundriss der englischen Metrik (Wien, 1895). It was therefore found possible, several years after its publication, to make arrangements with the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for an English edition of this smaller book. Unfortunately, however, the printing of the manuscript, which was submitted to the supervision of the late Professor York Powell, was delayed, first by the illness and the untimely death of that eminent scholar, and afterwards by other circumstances which it is not necessary to mention here.

On the whole the English text of the present volume is a close rendering of the German book, except in the first few chapters, which have been somewhat more fully worked out. It may also be mentioned that one or two modern English poets who seemed to be unduly neglected in the German book have received a larger share of attention in the English edition. Some errors of the original work have, of course, also been corrected here.

The treatment of the subject in this handbook is the same as in the author’s larger work. The systematic arrangement of the different kinds of verse in Book I, and of the varieties of stanzas in Book II, will enable the reader easily to find the appropriate place for any new forms of verse or stanza that may come in his way, and will also facilitate the use of the large German work, to which frequent references are given, for the benefit of those students who may desire more detailed information.

From the Preface to the German edition of the present work some remarks on the accents, chiefly in Part II of Book I, may be repeated here in order to prevent misunderstanding.

These accents on particular syllables in equal-measured rhythms are merely meant to facilitate the scansion of the verse according to the author’s view of its rhythmical movement, and to enable the student to apprehend more readily the precise meaning of the descriptions. They are by no means intended to dictate a schematic scansion to the reader, as it is obvious that the finer shades of the rhythm cannot be indicated by such a mode of accentuation. The safer and easier way undoubtedly would have been to put no accents at all; but this would have been less convenient for the reader, to whose own judgement it may be left in every case to be guided by the accents just so far as he may think proper.

In making this statement, however, I may be allowed to mention that none of the English friends who kindly assisted me in revising my manuscript has found fault with my system of accentuation.

My sincerest thanks for their kind help and advice are due to Dr. Francis J. Curtis, now Professor of English Philology in the Mercantile Academy at Frankfort on the Main, and in a still higher degree to Dr. James Morison, of Shotover Cottage, Headington Quarry, Oxford, Examiner in Sanskrit and German, both of them formerly Lectors of English in the University of Vienna. I am under equally great obligations to Dr. Henry Bradley, to whose care the final revision of the MS. was entrusted by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and who also had the great kindness to superintend the printing of it. To him I am indebted for several useful suggestions regarding the typographical arrangement, and still more for his valuable help in regard to the style of the book. To the Delegates and the Secretary of the Clarendon Press I feel greatly obliged not only for undertaking the publication, but also for the patient consideration they have shown me during the slow progress of this work.

J. SCHIPPER.

Vienna, Feb. 6, 1910.

CONTENTS

LIST OF EDITIONS REFERRED TO

The quotations of Old English poetry are taken from Grein-Wülker, Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie, Strassburg, 1883–94. For the Middle English poets the editions used have been specified in the text. Most of the poets of the Modern English period down to the eighteenth century are quoted from the collection of R. Anderson, The Works of the British Poets, Edinburgh, 1795 (15 vols.), which is cited (under the title Poets) by volume and page. The remaining Modern English poets are quoted (except when some other edition is specified) from the editions mentioned in the following list.

ERRATA

BOOK I. THE LINE

PART I. THE NATIVE METRE

CHAPTER I
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF
METRE AND THE STRUCTURE OF VERSE

§ 1. The study of English Metre is an integral part of English Philology. It is indispensable to the investigator of the history of the language, since it supplies sometimes the only (or at all events the surest) means of restoring the older pronunciation of word-stems, and of inflexional terminations. In many cases, indeed, the very existence of such terminations can be proved only by the ascertained requirements of metre. As an aid to the study of English literature in its aesthetic aspects the science of metre is no less important. It exhibits the gradual development of the artistic forms of poetical composition, explains the conditions under which they took their rise, and by formulating the laws of their structure affords valuable help in the textual criticism of poems which have been transmitted in a corrupt or imperfect condition.

§ 2. The object of the science of metre is to describe and analyse the various rhythmical forms of speech that are characteristic of poetry in contradistinction to prose.

Poetry is one of the fine arts, and the fine arts admit of a division into Plastic and Rhythmic; the Plastic arts comprehending Sculpture, Architecture, and Painting, the Rhythmic arts, on the other hand, comprehending Dancing, Music, and Poetry. The chief points of difference between these classes are as follows. In the first place, the productions of the Plastic arts can be enjoyed by the beholder directly on their completion by the artist without the interposition of any help, while those of the Rhythmic arts demand, after the original creative artist has done his work, the services of a second or executive artist, who is usually termed the performer, in order that these productions may be fully enjoyed by the spectator or hearer. A piece of music requires a singer or player, a pantomime a dancer, and poetry a reciter or actor. In early times the function of executive artist was commonly discharged by the creative artist himself. In the second place, the Plastic arts have no concern with the relations of time; a work of painting or sculpture presents to the beholder an unchanging object or represents a single moment of action. The Rhythmic arts, on the other hand, are, in their very essence, connected with temporal succession. Dancing implies a succession of movements of the human body, Music a succession of inarticulate sounds, Poetry a succession of articulate sounds or words and syllables. The Plastic arts, therefore, may be called the arts of space and rest, and the Rhythmic arts the arts of time and movement. In this definition, it must be remembered, the intrinsic quality of the movements in each of these rhythmical arts is left out of account; in the case of poetry, for instance, it does not take into consideration the choice and position of the words, nor the thought expressed by them; it is restricted to the external characteristic which these arts have in common.

§ 3. This common characteristic, however, requires to be defined somewhat more precisely. It is not merely succession of movements, but succession of different kinds of movement in a definite and recurring order. In the dance, the measure, or succession and alternation of quick and slow movements in regular and fixed order, is the essential point. This is also the foundation of music and poetry. But another elementary principle enters into these two arts. They are not founded, as dancing is, upon mere silent movements, but on movements of audible sounds, whether inarticulate, as in music, or articulate, as in poetry. These sounds are not all on a level in respect of their audibility, but vary in intensity: broadly speaking, they may be said to be either loud or soft. There is, it is true, something analogous to this in the movements of the dance; the steps differ in degree of intensity or force. Dancing indeed may be looked upon as the typical form and source of all rhythmic movement. Scherer brings this point out very well.[1] He says: ‘Rhythm is produced by regular movements of the body. Walking becomes dancing by a definite relation of the steps to one another—of long and short in time or fast and slow in motion. A regular rhythm has never been reached by races among which irregular jumping, instead of walking, has been the original form of the dance. Each pair of steps forms a unity, and a repetition begins with the third step. This unity is the bar or measure. The physical difference between the comparative strength of the right foot and the weakness of the left foot is the origin of the distinction between elevation and depression, i.e. between relatively loud and soft, the “good” and the “bad” part of the measure.’

Westphal[2] gives a similar explanation: ‘That the stamp of the foot or the clap of the hands in beating time coincides with the strong part of the measure, and the raising of the foot or hand coincides with the weak part of it, originates, without doubt, in the ancient orchestic.’ At the strong part of the bar the dancer puts his foot to the ground and raises it at the weak part. This is the meaning and original Greek usage of the terms ‘arsis’ and ‘thesis’, which are nowadays used in an exactly opposite sense. Arsis in its ancient signification meant the raising of the foot or hand, to indicate the weak part of the measure; thesis was the putting down of the foot, or the stamp, to mark the strong part of the measure. Now, however, it is almost the universal custom to use arsis to indicate the syllable uttered with a raised or loud voice, and thesis to indicate the syllable uttered with lower or soft voice. From the practice of beating time the term ictus is also borrowed; it is commonly used to designate the increase of voice which occurs at the strong, or so-called rhythmical accent.

All rhythm therefore in our dancing, poetry, and music, comes to us from ancient times, and is of the same nature in these three arts: it is regular order in the succession of different kinds of motion.

§ 4. The distinction between prose and poetry in their external aspects may be stated thus: in prose the words follow each other in an order determined entirely, or almost entirely, by the sense, while in poetry the order is largely determined by fixed and regular rhythmic schemes.

Even in prose a certain influence of rhythmical order may be sometimes observable, and where this is marked we have what is called rhythmical or artistic prose. But in such prose the rhythmic order must be so loosely constructed that it does not at once obtrude itself on the ear, or recur regularly as it does in poetry. Wherever we have intelligible words following each other in groups marked by a rhythmical order which is at once recognizable as intentionally chosen with a view to symmetry, there we may be said to have poetry, at least on its formal side. Poetical rhythm may accordingly be defined as a special symmetry, easily recognizable as such, in the succession of syllables of differing phonetic quality, which convey a sense, and are so arranged as to be uttered in divisions of time which are symmetrical in their relation to one another.

§ 5. At this point we have to note that there are two kinds of phonetic difference between syllables, either of which may serve as a foundation for rhythm. In the first place, syllables differ in respect of their quantity; they are either ‘long’ or ‘short’, according to the length of time required to pronounce them. In the second place, they differ in respect of the greater or less degree of force or stress with which they are uttered; or, as it is commonly expressed, in respect of their accent.

All the poetic rhythms of the Indogermanic or Aryan languages are based on one or other of these phonetic qualities of syllables, one group observing mainly the quantitative, and the other the accentual principle. Sanskrit, Greek, and Roman poetry is regulated by the principle of the quantity of the syllable, while the Teutonic nations follow the principle of stress or accent.[3] With the Greeks, Romans, and Hindoos the natural quantity of the syllables is made the basis of the rhythmic measures, the rhythmical ictus being fixed without regard to the word-accent. Among the Teutonic nations, on the other hand, the rhythmical ictus coincides normally with the word-accent, and the order in which long and short syllables succeed each other is (with certain exceptions in the early stages of the language) left to be determined by the poet’s sense of harmony or euphony.

§ 6. Before going further it will be well to define exactly the meaning of the word accent, and to give an account of its different uses. Accent is generally defined as ‘the stronger emphasis put on a syllable, the stress laid on it’, or, as Sweet[4] puts it, ‘the comparative force with which the separate syllables of a sound-group are pronounced.’ According to Brücke[5] it is produced by increasing the pressure of the breath. The stronger the pressure with which the air passes from the lungs through the glottis, the louder will be the tone of voice, the louder will be the sound of the consonants which the stream of air produces in the cavity of the mouth. This increase of tone and sound is what is called ‘accent’. Brücke seems to use tone and sound as almost synonymous, but in metric we must distinguish between them. Sound (sonus) is the more general, tone (τόνος) the more specific expression. Sound, in this general sense, may have a stronger or weaker tone. This strengthening of the tone is usually, not invariably, accompanied by a rise in the pitch of the voice, just as the weakening of the tone is accompanied by a lowering of the pitch. In the Teutonic languages these variations of stress or accent serve to bring into prominence the relative importance logically of the various syllables of which words are composed. As an almost invariable rule, the accent falls in these languages on the root-syllable, which determines the sense of the word, and not on the formative elements which modify that sense. This accent is an expiratory or stress accent.

It must be noted that we cannot, using the term in this sense, speak of the accent of a monosyllabic word when isolated, but only of its sound; nor can we use the word accent with reference to two or more syllables in juxtaposition, when they are all uttered with precisely the same force of voice. The term is significant only in relation to a variation in the audible stress with which the different syllables of a word or a sentence are spoken. This variation of stress affects monosyllables only in connected speech, where they receive an accentuation relative to the other words of the sentence. An absolute uniformity of stress in a sentence is unnatural, though the amount of variation in stress differs greatly in different languages. ‘The distinctions of stress in some languages are less marked than in others. Thus in French the syllables are all pronounced with a nearly uniform stress, the strong syllables rising only a little above the general level, its occurrence being also uncertain and fluctuating. This makes Frenchmen unable without systematic training to master the accentuation of foreign languages.’[6] English and the other Teutonic languages, on the other hand, show a marked tendency to alternate weak and strong stress.

§ 7. With regard to the function which it discharges in connected speech, we may classify accent or stress under four different categories. First comes what may be called the syntactical accent, which marks the logical importance of a word in relation to other words of the sentence. In a sentence like ‘the birds are singing’, the substantive ‘birds’ has, as denoting the subject of the sentence, the strongest accent; next in logical or syntactical importance comes the word ‘singing’, denoting an activity of the subject, and this has a comparatively strong accent; the auxiliary ‘are’ being a word of minor importance is uttered with very little force of voice; the article ‘the’, being the least emphatic or significant, is uttered accordingly with the slightest perceptible stress of all.

Secondly, we have the rhetorical accent, or as it might be called, the subjective accent, inasmuch as it depends upon the emphasis which the speaker wishes to give to that particular word of the sentence which he desires to bring prominently before the hearer. Thus in the sentence, ‘you have done this,’ the rhetorical accent may fall on any of the four words which the speaker desires to bring into prominence, e.g. ‘yóu (and no one else) have done this,’ or ‘you háve done this (though you deny it), or you have dóne this’ (you have not left it undone), or, finally, ‘you have done thís’ (and not what you were told). This kind of accent could also be termed the emphatic accent.

Thirdly, we have the rhythmical accent, which properly speaking belongs to poetry only, and often gives a word or syllable an amount of stress which it would not naturally have in prose, as, for instance, in the following line of Hamlet (iii. iii. 27)—

the unimportant word ‘to’ receives a stronger accent, due to the influence of the rhythm, than it would have in prose. Similarly in the following line of Chaucer’s Troilus and Cryseide, l. 1816—

the inflexional syllable es was certainly not ordinarily pronounced with so much stress as it must have here under the influence of the accent as determined by the rhythm of the line. Or again the word ‘writyng’, in the following couplet of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Prol. 325–6)—

was certainly not pronounced in ordinary speech with the same stress on the last syllable as is here demanded both by the rhythm and rhyme.

As a rule, however, the rhythmical accent in English coincides with the fourth kind of accent, the etymological or word-accent, which we now have to deal with, and in greater detail.

Just as the different words of a sentence are pronounced, as we have seen, with varying degrees of stress, so similarly the different syllables of a single word are uttered with a varying intensity of the force of the breath. One of the syllables of the individual word is always marked off from the rest by a greater force of tone, and these others are again differentiated from each other by subordinate gradations of intensity of utterance, which may sometimes be so weak as to lead to a certain amount of indistinctness, especially in English. In the Teutonic languages, the root-syllable, as the most important element of the word, and that which conveys the meaning, always bears the chief accent, the other syllables bearing accents which are subordinate to this chief accent. As the etymology of a word is always closely associated with the form of the root-syllable, this syllabic accent may be called the etymological accent. It naturally happens that this syllabic accent coincides very often with the syntactical accent, as the syntactical stress must be laid on the syllable which has the etymological accent.

The degrees of stress on the various syllables may be as many in number as the number of the syllables of the word in question. It is sufficient, however, for purposes of metre and historical grammar, to distinguish only four degrees of accent in polysyllabic words. These four degrees of syllabic and etymological accent are as follows: 1. the chief accent (Hochton, Hauptton); 2. the subsidiary accent (Tiefton, Nebenton); 3. the absence of accent, or the unaccented degree (Tonlosigkeit); 4. the mute degree, or absence of sound (Stummheit). These last three varieties of accent arise from the nature of the Teutonic accent, which is, it must always be remembered, a stress-accent in which the volume of breath is expended mainly on the first or chief syllable. The full meaning of these terms can most easily be explained and understood by means of examples chosen either from English or German, whose accentual basis is essentially the same. In the word, wonderful, the first syllable has the chief accent (1), the last has the subsidiary accent (2), and the middle syllable is unaccented (3). The fourth or mute degree may be seen in such a word as wondrous, shortened from wonderous. This fuller form may still be used, for metrical purposes, as a trisyllable in which the first syllable has the chief accent, the last the subsidiary accent, and the middle syllable is unaccented, though audible. The usual pronunciation is, however, in agreement with the usual spelling, disyllabic, and is wondrous; in other words, the vowel e which originally formed the middle syllable, has been dropped altogether in speech as in writing. From the point of view of the accent, it has passed from the unaccented state to the state of muteness; but may be restored to the unaccented, though audible, state, wherever emphasis or metre requires the full syllable. We have the line: ‘And it grew wondrous cold,’ for which we might have ‘The cold grew wonderous’. In other cases the vowel is retained in writing but is often dropped in colloquial pronunciation, or for metrical convenience. Thus, in Shakespeare, we find sometimes the full form—

and sometimes the curtailed form—

This passing of an unaccented syllable into complete muteness is very frequent in English, as compared with other cognate languages. It has led, in the historical development of the language, to a gradual weakening, and finally, in many instances, to a total loss of the inflexional endings. Very frequently, an inflexional vowel that has become mute is retained in the current spelling; thus in the verbal forms gives, lives, the e of the termination, though no longer pronounced, is still retained in writing. Sometimes, in poetical texts, it is omitted, but its position is indicated by an apostrophe, as in the spellings robb’d, belov’d. In many words, on the other hand, the silent vowel has ceased to be written, as in grown, sworn, of which the original forms were growen, sworen

§ 8. Written marks to indicate the position of the accent were employed in early German poetry as early as the first half of the ninth century, when they were introduced, it is supposed, by Hrabanus Maurus of Fulda and his pupil Otfrid. The similar marks that are found in certain Early English MSS., as the Ormulum, are usually signs of vowel-quantity. They may possibly have sometimes been intended to denote stress, but their use for this purpose is so irregular and uncertain that they give little help towards determining the varying degrees of accent in words during the earliest stages of the language. For this purpose we must look for other and less ambiguous means, and these are found (in the case of Old English words and forms) first, in the alliteration, secondly, in comparison with related words of the other Teutonic languages, and, thirdly, in the development in the later stages of English itself. After the Norman Conquest, the introduction of rhyme, and of new forms of metre imitated from the French and mediaeval Latin poetry, affords further help in investigating the different degrees of syllabic accent in Middle English words. None of these means, however, can be considered as yielding results of absolute certainty, chiefly because during this period the accentuation of the language was passing through a stage of transition or compromise between the radically different principles which characterize the Romanic and Teutonic families of languages. This will be explained more fully in a subsequent chapter.

Notwithstanding this period of fluctuation the fundamental law of accentuation remained unaltered, namely, that the chief accent falls on the root of the word, which is in most cases the first syllable. For purposes of notation the acute (´) will be used in this work to denote the chief accent, the grave (`) the subsidiary accent of the single word; to indicate the rhythmical or metrical accent the acute alone will be sufficient.

§ 9. In English poetry, as in the poetry of the other Teutonic nations, the rhythmical accent coincides normally with the syllabic or etymological accent, and this, therefore, determines and regulates the rhythm. In the oldest form of Teutonic poetry, the original alliterative line, the rhythm is indicated by a definite number of strongly accented syllables, accompanied by a less definite number of syllables which do not bear the same emphatic stress. This principle of versification prevails not only in Old English and Old and Middle High German poetry, but also, to a certain extent, in the period of Middle English, where, in the same manner, the number of beats or accented syllables indicates the number of ‘feet’ or metrical units, and a single strongly accented syllable can by itself constitute a ‘foot’. This practice is a feature which distinguishes early English and German poetry, not only from the classical poetry, in which a foot or measure must consist of at least two syllables, but also from that of the Romanic, modern German, and modern English languages, which has been influenced by classical example, and in which, accordingly, a foot must contain one accented and at least one unaccented syllable following one another in a regular order. The classical terms ‘foot’ and ‘measure’ have, in their strict sense, relation to the quantity of the syllables, and can therefore be applied to the modern metres only by analogy. In poetry which is based on the principle of accent or stress, the proper term is bar (in German Takt). The general resemblances between modern accentual and ancient quantitative metres are, however, so strong, that it is hardly desirable to discontinue the application of old and generally understood technical terms of the classical versification to modern metres, provided the fundamental distinction between quantity and accent is always borne in mind.

Setting aside for the present the old Teutonic alliterative line, in which a ‘bar’ might permissibly consist of a single syllable, we may retain the names of the feet of the classical quantitative versification for the ‘bars’ of modern versification, using them in modified senses. A group consisting of one unaccented followed by an accented syllable may be called an iambus; one accented followed by an unaccented syllable a trochee; two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable an anapaest; one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables a dactyl. These four measures might also be described according to the length of the intervals separating the accents, and according as the rhythm is ascending (passing from an unaccented to an accented syllable) or descending (passing from an accented to an unaccented syllable). We should then have the terms, (1) ascending disyllabic (iambus), (2) descending disyllabic (trochee), (3) ascending trisyllabic (anapaest), and (4) descending trisyllabic (dactyl).[7] But we may agree with Prof. Mayor that ‘it is certainly more convenient to speak of iambic than of ascending disyllabic’.[8] It is, however, only in the case of these four feet or measures that it is desirable to adhere to the terminology of the ancient metres, and as a matter of fact iambus, trochee, anapaest, and dactyl are the only names of classical feet that are commonly recognized in English prosody.[9] As to the employment in the treatment of English metre of less familiar technical terms derived from classical prosody, we agree with Prof. Mayor, when he says: ‘I can sympathize with Mr. Ellis in his objection to the classicists who would force upon us such terms as choriambic and proceleusmatic to explain the rhythm of Milton. I do not deny that the effect of his rhythm might sometimes be represented by such terms; but if we seriously adopt them to explain his metre, we are attempting an impossibility, to express in technical language the infinite variety of measured sound which a genius like Milton could draw out of the little five-stringed instrument on which he chose to play.’ The use of these and other classical terms is justifiable only when we have to deal with professed imitations of ancient forms of verse in English.

Whatever names may be chosen to denote the metrical forms, the measure or foot always remains the unity which is the basis of all modern metrical systems, and of all investigation into metre. For a line or verse is built up by the succession of a limited number of feet or measures, equal or unequal. With regard to the limit of the number of feet permissible in a line or verse, no fixed rule can be laid down. In no case must a line contain more feet than the ear may without difficulty apprehend as a rhythmic whole; or, if the number of feet is too great for this, the line must be divided by a pause or break (caesura) into two or more parts which we may then call rhythmical sections. This break is a characteristic mark of the typical Old English alliterative line, which is made up of two rhythmical sections. The structure of this verse was at one time obscured through the practice of printing each of these sections by itself as a short line; but Grimm’s example is now universally followed, and the two sections are printed as parts of one long line.[10] Before entering into a detailed consideration of the alliterative long line, it will be needful to make a few general remarks on rhyme and its different species.

§ 10. Modern metre is not only differentiated from metre of the classical languages by the principle of accent as opposed to quantity; it has added a new metrical principle foreign to the ancient systems. This principle is Rhyme. Instances of what looks like rhyme are found in the classical poets from Homer onwards, but they are sporadic, and are probably due to accident.[11]

Rhyme was not in use as an accessory to metre in Latin till the quantitative principle had given way to the accentual principle in the later hymns of the Church, and it has passed thence into all European systems of metre.

In our poetry it serves a twofold purpose: it is used either simply as an ornament, or as a tie to connect single lines into the larger metrical unity of stanza or stave, by the recurrence of similar sounds at various intervals.

In its widest sense rhyme is an agreement or consonance of sounds in syllables or words, and falls into several subdivisions, according to the extent and position of this agreement. As to its position, this consonance may occur in the beginning of a syllable or word, or in the middle, or in both middle and end at the same time. As to its extent, it may comprehend one or two or more syllables. Out of these various possibilities of likeness or consonance there arise three chief kinds of rhyme in this wide sense, alliteration, assonance, and end-rhyme, or rhyme simply in the more limited and usual acceptation of the word.

§ 11. This last, end-rhyme, or full-rhyme, or rhyme proper, consists in a perfect agreement or consonance of syllables or words except in their initial sounds, which as a rule are different. Generally speaking, the agreement of sounds falls on the last accented syllable of a word, or on the last accented syllable and a following unaccented syllable or syllables. End-rhyme or full-rhyme seems to have arisen independently and without historical connexion in several nations, but as far as our present purpose goes we may confine ourselves to its development in Europe among the nations of Romanic speech at the beginning of the Middle Ages. Its adoption into all modern literature is due to the extensive use made of it in the hymns of the Church. Full-rhyme or end-rhyme therefore is a characteristic of modern European poetry, and though it cannot be denied that unrhymed verse, or blank verse, is much used in English poetry, the fact remains that this metre is an exotic product of the Renaissance, and has never become thoroughly popular. Its use is limited to certain kinds of poetic composition, whereas rhyme prevails over the wider part of the realm of modern poetry.

§ 12. The second kind of rhyme (taking the word in its broader sense), namely, vocalic assonance, is of minor importance in the treatment of English metre. It consists in a similarity between the vowel-sounds only of different words; the surrounding consonants do not count. The following groups of words are assonant together: give, thick, fish, win; sell, step, net; thorn, storm, horse. This kind of rhyme was very popular among the Romanic nations, and among them alone. Its first beginnings are found in the Latin ecclesiastical hymns, and these soon developed into real or full-rhyme.[12] It passed thence into Provençal, Old French, and Spanish poetry, and has continued in use in the last named. It is very rarely found in English verse, it has in fact never been used deliberately, as far as we know, except in certain recent experiments in metre. Where it does seem to occur it is safest to look upon it as imperfect rhyme only. Instances are found in the Early English metrical romances, Lives of Saints, and popular ballad poetry, where the technique of the metre is not of a high order; examples such as flete, wepe; brake, gate; slepe, ymete from King Horn might be looked on as assonances, but were probably intended for real rhymes. The consistent use of the full-rhyme being difficult, the poets, in such instances as these, contented themselves with the simpler harmony between the vowels alone, which represents a transition stage between the older rhymeless alliterative verse, and the newer Romanic metres with real and complete rhyme. Another possible form of assonance, in which the consonants alone agree while the vowels may differ, might be called consonantal assonance as distinguished from vocalic assonance, or assonance simply. This form of assonance is not found in English poetry, though it is employed in Celtic and Icelandic metres.[13]

§ 13. The third species of rhyme, to use the word still in its widest sense, is known as alliteration (German Stabreim or Anreim). It is common to all Teutonic nations, and is found fully developed in the oldest poetical monuments of Old Norse, Old High German, Old Saxon, and Old English. Even in classical poetry, especially in the remains of archaic Latin, it is not unfrequently met with, but serves only as a means for giving to combinations of words a rhetorical emphasis, and is not a formal principle of the metre bound by strict rules, as it is in Teutonic poetry. Alliteration consists in a consonance or agreement of the sounds at the beginning of a word or syllable, as in love and liking, house and home, woe and weal. The alliteration of vowels and diphthongs has this peculiarity that the agreement need not be exact as in ‛apt alliteration’s artful aid’, but can exist, at least in the oldest stages of the language, between all vowels indiscriminately. Thus in the oldest English not only were ellen and ende, ǣnig and ǣr, ēac and ēage alliterations, but age and īdel, ǣnig and ellen, eallum and æðelingum were employed in the strictest forms of verse as words which perfectly alliterated with each other.

This apparent confusion of vowel-sounds so different in their quantity and quality is probably to be explained by the fact that originally in English, as now in German, all the vowels were preceded by a ‘glottal catch’ which is the real alliterating sound.[14] The harmony or consonance of the unlike vowels is hardly perceptible in Modern English and does not count as alliteration.

The most general law of the normal alliterative line is that three or at least two of the four strongly accented syllables which occur in every long line (two in each section) must begin with an alliterative letter, for example, in the following Old English lines:

or in early Modern English:

The history of the primitive alliterative line follows very different lines of development in the various Teutonic nations. In Old High German, after a period in which the strict laws of the verse were largely neglected, it was abandoned in favour of rhyme by Otfrid (circa 868). In Old English it kept its place as the only form of verse for all classes of poetical composition, and continued in use, even after the introduction of Romanic forms of metre, during the Middle English period, and did not totally die out till the beginning of the seventeenth century. The partial revival of it is due to the increased interest in Old English studies, but has been confined largely to translations. As an occasional rhetorical or stylistic ornament of both rhymed and unrhymed verse, alliteration has always been made use of by English poets.

CHAPTER II
THE ALLITERATIVE VERSE IN OLD ENGLISH

§ 14. General remarks. It is highly probable that alliteration was the earliest kind of poetic form employed by the English people. There is no trace in the extant monuments of the language of any more primitive or simpler system. A predilection for alliteration existed even in prose, as in the names of heroes and families like Scyld and Sceaf, Hengist and Horsa, Finn and Folcwald, pairs that alliterate in the same way as the family names of other Teutonic nations: the names of the three sons of Mannus, Ingo, Isto, Irmino, conform to this type.[15] The earliest monuments of Old English poetry, as the fragmentary hymn of Cædmon in the More MS. (Cambridge) and the inscription on the Ruthwell Cross, are composed in the long alliterative line. The great body of Old English verse is in this metre, the only exceptions being the ‘Rhyming Poem’ (in the Exeter Book),[16] and a few other late pieces, in which alliteration and rhyme are combined. This Old English poetry, therefore, together with the Old Norse and Old Saxon remains (the Heliand with 5,985 lines, and the recently discovered fragment of the Old Saxon Genesis, edited by Zangemeister and Braune, 1894, with 335 lines), affords ample and trustworthy material for determining the laws of the alliterative verse as used by the Teutonic nations. In comparison with these the remains of Old High German alliterative verse are both scanty and lax in structure.

§ 15. Theories on the metrical form of the alliterative line. Notwithstanding their comparative scantiness, the Old High German fragments (Hildebrandslied, Wessobrunner Gebet, Muspilli and two magical formulae, with a total of some 110 lines) formed the basis of the earliest theories of the laws of the accentuation and general character of the original alliterative line. They were assumed to have preserved the features of the primitive metre, and conclusions were drawn from them as to the typical form of the verse. When examined closely, the Old High German remains (and this is true also of the longer monuments in Old Saxon) are found to differ widely from Old Norse and Old English verse in one respect. While the general and dominating features of the line remain the same, the Old High German and Old Saxon lines are much longer than the Old Norse or Old English lines. In Old Norse or Old English the half line frequently contains no more than four syllables, in marked contrast to Old High German and Old Saxon, where the half line or section is considerably longer.

The first attempt at a theory of the metrical structure of the alliterative line was made by Lachmann. He based his theory on the form of verse created by Otfrid, in imitation of Latin models, which consists of a long line of eight accents, separated by leonine rhyme into two sections each of four accents alternately strong and weak.[17] The laws of the rhyming and strophic verse of Otfrid were applied by Lachmann to the purely alliterative verses of the Old High German Hildebrandslied, and this system of scanning was further applied by his followers to the alliterative verse of Old English, the true nature of which was long misunderstood on the Continent. In England itself a sounder view of the native alliterative verse was propounded by Bishop Percy as early as 1765, in his Essay on the Metre of Pierce Plowman published along with his well-known Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, not to speak of the earlier writings of G. Gascoigne (1575) and James VI (1585). But the number and authority of some of Lachmann’s followers are such that some detailed account of their theories must be given.[18]

§ 16. The four-beat theory of the alliterative verse, based on the assumption that each of the two sections must have had four accented syllables to bring out a regular rhythm, was applied by Lachmann himself only to the Old High German Hildebrandslied,[19] while on the other hand he recognized a freer variety with two chief accents only in each section, for the Old Norse, Old Saxon, and Old English. The four-beat theory was further applied to the Old High German Muspilli by Bartsch,[20] and to the rest of the smaller relics of Old High German verse by Müllenhoff.[21] The next step was to bring the Old Saxon Heliand and the Old English Beowulf under this system of scansion; and this was taken by M. Heyne in 1866 and 1867. But the metre of Beowulf does not differ from that of the other alliterative poems in Old English, and these in their turn were claimed for the four-beat theory by Schubert,22 but with this important modification, made before by Bartsch, that side by side with the usual four-beat sections there were also to be found sections of three beats only. One obvious difficulty in applying the theory of four strongly marked beats to the Old English half-lines or hemistichs is this, that in Old English these hemistichs consist in very many cases of not more than four syllables altogether, each one of which would on this theory have an accent to itself. To meet these cases E. Jessen[23] started the theory that in certain cases pauses had to be substituted for ‘beats not realized’. A further modification of the four-beat doctrine was introduced by Amelung,[24] who maintained that in the metre of the Heliand each hemistich had two primary or chief accents and two secondary or subordinate accents. In order to bring the verse under this scansion he assumes that certain syllables admitted of being lengthened. He further regarded the Heliand verse as a metre regulated by strict time, and not as a measure intended for free recitation and depending only on the number of accented syllables.

A few other more recent attempts at solving the problem must be mentioned before we pass on to explain and discuss Sievers’s system in the next paragraph. The views of Prof. Möller of Copenhagen[25] have found an adherent in Lawrence, from whose book[26] we may quote the following summary of Möller’s theory. According to Prof. Möller the hemistich consists theoretically of two measures (Takte), each of four morae ×́××̀× (a mora, ×, being the time required for one short syllable), and therefore the whole verse of four measures, thus:

×́××̀×|×́××̀×||×́××̀×|×́××̀×||.

Where, in a verse, the morae are not filled by actual syllables, their time must be occupied by rests (represented by r*) in reciting, by holding on the note in singing.[27] A long syllable, ——, is equivalent to two morae. Thus v. 208 of Beowulf

would be symbolically represented as follows:

–́×̀×|–́×̀ r ||–́ rr |–́×̀×.

According to this system the pause at secg will be twice as long as that at sōhte, whilst at wudu there will be no real pause and the point will merely indicate the end of the measure.

Others reverted to the view of Bartsch and Schubert that there could be hemistichs with only three accents alongside of the hemistichs with the normal number of four. Among these may be mentioned H. Hirt,[28] whose view is that three beats to a hemistich is the normal number, four being less usual, the long line having thus mostly six beats, against the eight of Lachmann’s theory; K. Fuhr,[29] who holds that every hemistich, whether it stands first or second in the verse, has four beats if the last syllable is unaccented (klingend; in that case the final unaccented syllable receives a secondary rhythmical accent, for example, fḗond máncýnnès) and has three beats if it is accented (stumpf, for example, fýrst fórð gewā́t, or múrnénde mṓd, &c.); and B. ten Brink,[30] who calls the hemistichs with four beats full or ‘complete’ (e.g. hȳ́ràn scóldè, but admits hemistichs with three beats only, calling them ‘incomplete’ from the want of a secondary accent (e.g. twélf wíntra tī́d, hā́m gesṓhte, &c.). The four-beat theory was reverted to by M. Kaluza, who endeavours to reconcile it with the results of Sievers and others.[31] A somewhat similar view is taken by R. Kögel.[32] Trautmann[33] takes Amelung’s view that certain words and syllables must be lengthened in order to get the four accented syllables necessary for each hemistich. Thus, according to Trautmann’s scansion,

would run ×́×|×́×|×́×|⏑́× and

would also have the formula ×́×|×́×|×́×|⏑́×,

ond being protracted to two units. Another instance of this lengthening would, on this theory, occur in the final syllable of the word radores in the hemistich únder rádorès rýne, while in a section like gūð-rinc monig, or of fold-grǽfe, the words rinc and of would be extended to two, and gūð and fold would each be extended to four units, in order to fit in with the scansion ×́×|×́×|×́×|⏑́×. Most of the partisans of the four-beat theory for the hemistich agree in making two of these beats primary, and two secondary; Trautmann, however, does not seem to recognize any such difference in the force of the four accents. All the supporters of the four-beat theory have this in common, that the rhythm of the verse is assumed to be based on time (taktierend), but in other respects differ widely from each other; Hirt, for example, in his last discussion of the subject,[34] claiming that his own view is fundamentally different from that of Kaluza, which again he looks on as at variance with those of Möller and Heusler.

§ 17. The two-beat theory, on the other hand, is that each of the two hemistichs of the alliterative line need have only two accented syllables. In England this view was taken by two sixteenth-century writers on verse, George Gascoigne[35] who quotes the line,

giving as the accentual scheme ` ´ ` ` ´ ` ´ ` ` ´; and by King James VI, whose example is—

In 1765, Percy, in his Essay on Pierce Plowman’s Visions, pointed out ‘that the author of this poem will not be found to have invented any new mode of versification, as some have supposed, but only to have retained that of the old Saxon and Gothick poets, which was probably never wholly laid aside, but occasionally used at different intervals’. After quoting[37] two Old Norse, he gives two Old English verses:—

he continues: ‘Now if we examine the versification of Pierce Plowman’s Visions’ (from which he quotes the beginning—

‘we shall find it constructed exactly by these rules’, which are, in his own words, ‘that every distich [i.e. complete long line] should contain at least three words beginning with the same letter or sound; two of these correspondent sounds might be placed either in the first or second line of the distich, and one in the other, but all three were not regularly to be crowded into one line.’ He then goes on to quote further specimens of alliterative verse from Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, The Sege of Jerusalem, The Chevalere Assigne, Death and Liffe and Scottish Fielde, which latter ends with a rhyming couplet:

Taken as a whole his dissertation on the history of alliterative verse is remarkably correct, and his final remarks are noteworthy:

Now it is clear that this verse is of exactly the same structure as the verses quoted by Gascoigne:

where the scheme of accents is Gascoigne’s own, showing that he read them as verses of four accents in all, two in each hemistich. They show the same rhythmical structure as the ‘tumbling’ or alliterative line given by James VI[39] (1585):

and described by him as having ‘twa [feit, i.e. syllables] short, and ane lang throuch all the lyne’, in other words with four accented syllables in the verse.

Percy detected very acutely that the Middle English alliterative line stood in close connexion with the Old English alliterative line, and suggested as highly probable that the metre of Pierce Plowman would give a key to the rhythm of that older form of verse, which would have to be read with two accented syllables in the hemistich, and therefore four in the whole line.

Had this essay of Percy’s been known to Lachmann’s followers, many of the forced attempts at reconciling the Old English verse with a scheme that involved a fixed number of syllables in the line would not have been made. Lachmann himself, it must be remembered, admitted the two-beat scansion for Old Norse, Old Saxon, and Old English. Meanwhile other investigators were at work on independent lines. In 1844 A. Schmeller, the editor of the Heliand, formulated the law that, in the Teutonic languages, it is the force with which the different syllables are uttered that regulates the rhythm of the verse, and not the number or length of the syllables (which are of minor importance), and established the fact that this alliterative verse was not meant to be sung but to be recited.[40] He does not enter into the details of the rhythm of the verse, except by pointing out the two-beat cadence of each section. Somewhat later, W. Wackernagel[41] declared himself in favour of the two-beat theory for all Teutonic alliterative verse. In every hemistich of the verse there are according to Wackernagel two syllables with a grammatical or logical emphasis, and consequently a strong accent, the number of less strongly accented syllables not being fixed. The two-beat theory was again ably supported by F. Vetter[42] and by K. Hildebrand, who approached the subject by a study of the Old Norse alliterative verse,[43] and by M. Rieger in his instructive essay on Old Saxon and Old English versification.[44] In this essay Rieger pointed out the rules prevailing in the poetry of those two closely related Teutonic nations, dealt with the distribution and quality of the alliteration, the relation of the alliteration to the noun, adjective, and verb, and to the order of words, with the caesura and the close of the verse, and, finally, with the question of the accented syllables and the limits of the use of unaccented syllables.[45] Other scholars, as Horn, Ries, and Sievers, contributed further elucidations of the details of this metre on the basis of Rieger’s researches.[46]

Next to Rieger’s short essay the most important contribution made to the accurate and scientific study of alliterative verse was that made by Sievers in his article on the rhythm of the Germanic alliterative verse.[47] In this he shows, to use his own words, ‘that a statistical classification of groups of words with their natural accentuation in both sections of the alliterative line makes it clear that this metre, in spite of its variety, is not so irregular as to the unaccented syllables at the beginning or in the middle of the verse as has been commonly thought, but that it has a range of a limited number of definite forms which may be all reduced to five primary types.’ These five types or chief variations in the relative position of the accented and unaccented syllables are, as Sievers points out, of such a nature and so arbitrarily combined in the verse, that they cannot possibly be regarded as symmetrical feet of a line evenly measured and counted by the number of syllables. ‘The fundamental principle, therefore, of the structure of the alliterative line, as we find it in historical times, is that of a free change of rhythm which can only be understood if the verse was meant to be recited, not to be sung.’[48] Soon after the publication of Sievers’s essay on the rhythm of the Germanic verse, the first part of which contained a complete classification of all the forms of the line occurring in Beowulf, other scholars applied his method and confirmed his results by examining in detail the other important Old English texts; Luick dealt with Judith,[49] Frucht with the poems of Cynewulf,[50] and Cremer with Andreas, &c.[51] Sievers himself, after contributing to the pages of Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie a concise account of his theories and results, expounded them in greater detail in his work on Old Germanic Metre[52] in which he emphasizes the fact that his five-type theory cannot properly be called a theory at all, but is simply an expression of the rules of the alliterative verse obtained by a statistical method of observation. In spite of the criticisms of his opponents, Möller, Heusler, Hirt, Fuhr, and others, he maintained his former views. In principle these views are in conformity with the manner of reading or scanning the alliterative verse explained by English writers on the subject from the sixteenth century downwards, though their terminology naturally is not the same as Sievers’s. We may, therefore, accept them on the whole as sound.

It would be out of place here to enter into the question of prehistoric forms of Teutonic poetry. It will be enough to say that in Sievers’s opinion a primitive form of this poetry was composed in strophes or stanzas, intended to be sung and not merely to be recited; that at a very early period this sung strophic poetry gave way to a recited stichic form suitable to epic narrations; and that his five-type forms are the result of this development. As all the attempts to show that certain Old English poems were originally composed in strophic form[53] have proved failures, we may confidently assent to Sievers’s conclusion that the alliterative lines (as a rule) followed one upon another in unbroken succession, and that in historic times they were not composed in even and symmetrical measures (taktierend), and were not meant to be sung to fixed tunes.

The impossibility of assuming such symmetrical measures for the Old English poetry is evident from the mere fact that the end of the line does not as a rule coincide with the end of the sentence, as would certainly be the case had the lines been arranged in staves or stanzas meant for singing. The structure of the alliterative line obeys only the requirements of free recitation and is built up of two hemistichs which have a rhythmical likeness to one another resulting from the presence in each of two accented syllables, but which need not have, and as a matter of fact very rarely have, complete identity of rhythm, because the number and situation of the unaccented syllables may vary greatly in the two sections.

§ 18. Accentuation of Old English. As the versification of Old English is based on the natural accentuation of the language, it will be necessary to state the laws of this accentuation before giving an account of the five types to which the structure of the hemistich has been reduced.

In simple polysyllables the chief or primary accent, in this work marked by an acute (´), is as a rule on the root-syllable, and the inflexional and other elements of the word have a less marked accent varying from a secondary accent, here marked by a grave (`), to the weakest grade of accent, which is generally left unmarked: thus wúldor, héofon, wī́tig, wúnode, ǽðelingas, &c.

In the alliterative line, as a general rule, only syllables with the chief accent carry either the alliterating sounds or the four rhythmical accents of the verse. All other syllables, even those with secondary accent, count ordinarily as the ‘theses’ (Senkungen) of the verse[54]:

In compound words (certain combinations with unaccented prefixes excepted) the first element of the compound (which modifies or determines the meaning of the second element) has the primary accent, the second element having only a secondary accent, e.g. wúldor-cỳning, hḗah-sètl, sṓð-fæ̀st.[55] If therefore the compound has, as is mostly the case, only one alliterative sound, that alliteration must necessarily fall on the first part of the compound:

Sometimes it happens that in hemistichs of no great length the second part of the compound carries one of the two rhythmical accents of the hemistich, e.g.

and in a particular form of alliteration[56] it may even contain one of the alliterating sounds, as in the verse:

The less strongly accented derivational and inflexional suffixes, though they are not allowed to alliterate, may occasionally have the rhythmical accent, on condition that they immediately follow upon a long accented syllable, e.g.

The rhythmical value of syllables with a secondary accent will be considered more fully later on.

These general rules for the accent of compound words formed of noun + noun or adjective + noun require modification for the cases where a prefix (adverb or preposition) stands in close juxtaposition with a verb or noun. The preposition standing before and depending on a noun coalesces so closely with it that the two words express a single notion, the noun having the chief accent, e.g. onwég, āwég (away), ætsómne (together), ofdū́ne (down), toníhte (to-night), onmíddum (amid); examples in verse are:

But while the prepositional prefix thus does not carry the alliteration owing to its want of accent, some of the adverbs used in composition are accented, others are unaccented, and others again may be treated either way. When the adverbial prefix originally stood by itself side by side with the verb, and may in certain cases still be disjoined from it, it has then the primary accent, because it is felt as a modifying element of the compound. When, however, the prefix and the verb have become so intimately united as to express one single notion, the verb takes the accent and the prefix is treated as proclitic, and there is a third class of these compounds which are used indifferently with accent on the prefix or on the verb.

Some of the commonest prefixes used in alliteration are[57]: and, æfter, eft, ed, fore, forð, from, hider, in, hin, mid, mis, niðer, ongēan, or, up, ūt, efne, as in compounds like ándswarian, íngong, ǽfterweard, &c.:

Prefixes which do not take the alliteration are: ā, ge, for, geond, oð, e.g.

The following fluctuate: æt, an, bī (big), bi (be), of, ofer, on, tō, under, þurh, wið, wiðer, ymb. These are generally accented and alliterate, if compounded with substantives or adjectives, but are not accented and do not alliterate if compounded with verbs or other particles,[58] e.g. óferhēah, óferhȳd, but ofercúman, oferbī́dan. The following lines will illustrate this:

(a) prefixes which alliterate:

(b) prefixes which do not alliterate:

When prepositions precede other prepositions or adverbs in composition, the accent rests on that part of the whole compound which is felt to be the most important. Such compounds fall into three classes: (i) if a preposition or adverb is preceded by the prepositions be, on, tō, þurh, wið, these latter are not accented, since they only slightly modify the sense of the following adverb. Compounds of this kind are: beǣ́ftan, befóran, begéondan, behíndan, beínnan, benéoðan, búfan, bútan, onúfan, onúppan, tōfóran, wiðínnan, wiðū́tan, undernéoðan.[60] Only the second part of the compound is allowed to alliterate in these words:

Most of these words do not seem to occur in the poetry.

(ii) In compounds of þǣr + preposition the preposition is accented and takes the alliteration:

(iii) weard, as in æfterweard, foreweard, hindanweard, niðerweard, ufeweard, &c., is not accented:

§ 19. The secondary accent. The secondary or subordinate accent is of as great importance as the chief or primary accent in determining the rhythmical character of the alliterative line. It is found in the following classes of words:

(i) In all compounds of noun + noun, or adjective + noun, or adjective + adjective, the second element of the compound has the subordinate accent, e.g. hēah-sètl, gū́ð-rinc, hríng-nèt, sṓð-fæ̀st. Syllables with this secondary accent are necessary in certain cases as links between the arsis and thesis, as in forms like þégn Hrṓðgā̀res (–́|–́×̀×) or fýrst fórð gewā̀t (–́|–́××̀).

(ii) In proper names like Hrṓðgā̀r, Bḗowùlf, Hýgelā̀c, this secondary accent may sometimes count as one of the four chief metrical accents of the line, as in

contrasted with

(iii) When the second element has ceased to be felt as a distinct part of the compound, and is little more than a suffix, it loses the secondary accent altogether; as hlā́ford, ǣ́ghwylc, ínwit, and the large class of words compounded with -līc and sum.

(iv) In words of three syllables, the second syllable when long and following a long root-syllable with the chief accent, has, especially in the early stage of Old English, a well-marked secondary accent: thus, ǣ́rèsta, ṓðèrra, sémnìnga, éhtènde; the third syllable in words of the form ǽðelìnga gets the same secondary accent. This secondary accent can count as one of the four rhythmic accents of the line, e.g.

Words of this class, not compounded, are comparatively rare, but compounds with secondary accent are frequent.

These second syllables with a marked secondary accent in the best examples of Old English verse mostly form by themselves a member of the verse, i.e. are not treated as simple theses as in certain compositions of later date, e.g.

(v) After a long root-syllable of a trisyllabic word a short second syllable (whether its vowel was originally short or long) may bear one of the chief accents of the line, e.g. bōcère, bíscòpe:

or may stand in the thesis and be unaccented, as

This shows that in common speech these syllables had only a slight secondary accent.

(vi) Final syllables (whether long or short) are as a rule not accented even though a long root-syllable precede them.

§ 20. Division and metrical value of syllables. Some other points must be noticed with reference to the division and metrical value of the syllables of some classes of words.

The formative element i in the present stem of the second class of weak verbs always counts as a syllable when it follows a long root-syllable, thus fund-i-an, fund-i-ende not fund-yan, &c. In verbs with a short root-syllable it is metrically indifferent whether this i is treated as forming a syllable by itself or coalescing as a consonant with the following vowel, so that we may divide either ner-i-an, or ner-yan; in verbs of the first and third class the consonantal pronunciation was according to Sievers probably the usual one, hence neryan (nerian), lifyan (lifᵹan), but for verbs of the second class the syllable remained vocalic, thus þolian.[61]

In foreign names like Assyria, Eusebius, the i is generally treated as a vowel, but in longer words possibly as a consonant, as Macedonya (Macedonia). As to the epenthetic vowels developed from a w, the question whether we are to pronounce gearowe or gearwe, bealowes or bealwes cannot be decided by metre. Syllabic l,m, n (l̥, m̥, n̥) following a short root-vowel lose their syllabic character, thus sĕtl, hræ̆gl, swĕfn are monosyllables, but er coming from original r as in wæter, leger may be either consonantal or vocalic. After a long root-syllable vocalic pronunciation is the rule, but occasionally words of this kind, as túngl, bṓsm, tā́cn, are used as monosyllables, and the l, m, and n are consonants. Hiatus is allowed; but in many cases elision of an unaccented syllable takes place, though no fixed rule can be laid down owing to the fluctuating number of unaccented syllables permissible in the hemistich or whole line. In some cases the metre requires us to expunge vowels which have crept into the texts by the carelessness of copyists, e.g. we must write ḗðles instead of ḗðeles, éngles instead of éngeles, dḗofles instead of dḗofeles, and in other cases we must restore the older and fuller forms such as ṓðerra for ṓðrā, eṓwere for ḗowre.[62] The resolution of long syllables with the chief accent in the arsis, and of long syllables with the secondary accent in the thesis, affects very greatly the number of syllables in the line. Instead of the one long syllable which as a rule bears one of the four chief accents of the verse, we not unfrequently meet with a short accented syllable plus an unaccented syllable either long or short (⏑́×́). This is what is termed the resolution of an accented syllable. A word accordingly like fároðe with one short accented syllable and two unaccented syllables has the same rhythmical value as fṓron with one long accented and one unaccented syllable, or a combination like se þe wæs is rhythmically equivalent to sécg wæs.

§ 21. We now come to the structure of the whole alliterative line. The regular alliterative line or verse is made up of two hemistichs or sections. These two sections are separated from each other by a pause or break, but united by means of alliteration so that they form a rhythmical unity. Each hemistich must have two syllables which predominate over the rest in virtue of their logical and syntactical importance and have on this account a stronger stress. These stressed syllables, four in number for the whole line, count as the rhythmical accents of the verse. The force given to these accented syllables is more marked when they carry at the same time the alliteration, which happens at least once in each hemistich, frequently twice in the first and once in the second hemistich, and in a number of instances twice in both hemistichs. The effect of the emphasis given to these four words or syllables by the syntax, etymology, rhythm, and sometimes alliteration, is that the other words and syllables may for metrical purposes be looked upon as in comparison unaccented, even though they may have a main or secondary word-accent.

In certain cases, in consequence of the particular structure of the hemistich, there is found a rhythmical secondary accent, generally coinciding with an etymological secondary accent, or with a monosyllable, or with the root-syllable of a disyllabic word. Sievers looks on these syllables as having in the rhythm of the verse the nature of a minor arsis (Nebenhebung); they rather belong to the class of syllables standing in thesis but with a slight degree of accent (tieftonige Senkung).

The two sections of the alliterative line rarely exhibit a strict symmetry as to the number of the unaccented syllables and their position with regard to the accented syllables. In the great majority of cases their similarity consists merely in their having each two accented syllables, their divergence in other respects being very considerable. It is to be noted that certain combinations of accented and unaccented syllables occur with more frequency in one hemistich than in the other, or are even limited to one of the two hemistichs only.

Besides the ordinary or normal alliterative line with four accents, there exists in Old English and in other West-Germanic poetry a variety of the alliterative line called the lengthened line (Schwellvers or Streckvers). In this line each hemistich has three accented syllables, the unaccented syllables standing in the same relation to the accented ones as they do in the normal two-beat hemistich.

§ 22. The structure of the hemistich in the normal alliterative line. The normal hemistich consists of four, seldom of five members[63] (Glieder), two of which are strongly accented (arses), the others unaccented or less strongly accented (theses). Each arsis is formed, as a rule, of a long accented syllable (–́), but the second part of a compound, and (less frequently) the second syllable with a secondary accent of a trisyllabic or disyllabic word, is allowed to stand as an arsis. By resolution a long accented syllable may be replaced by two short syllables, the first of which is accented. This is denoted by the symbol ⏑́×. The less strongly accented members of the hemistich fall into two classes according as they are unaccented or have the secondary accent. This division depends ultimately on the logical or etymological importance of the syllables. Unaccented syllables (marked in Sievers’s notation by ×) whether long or short by etymology, are mostly inflexional endings, formative elements, or proclitic and enclitic words.

Secondarily accented verse-members, mostly monosyllabic and long (denoted by ×̀, and occasionally, when short, by ⏑̀), are root-syllables in the second part of compounds, long second syllables of trisyllabic words whose root-syllable is long, and other syllables where in ordinary speech the presence of a secondary accent is unmistakable. The rhythmical value of these syllables with secondary accent is not always the same. When they stand in a foot or measure of two members and are preceded by an accented syllable they count as simply unaccented, and the foot is practically identical with the normal type represented by the notation –́× (as in the hemistich wī́sra wórda), but these half-accented syllables may be called heavy theses, and the feet which contain them may be denoted by the formula –́×̀, as in wí̄sfæ̀st wórdum (–́×̀|–́×). A hemistich like the last is called by Sievers strengthened (gesteigert), or if it has two heavy unaccented syllables in both feet, doubly strengthened, as in the section gū́ðrìnc góldwlànc (–́×̀|–́×̀). In these examples the occurrence of a heavy unaccented syllable is permissible but not necessary; but in feet or measures of three members they are obligatory, being required as an intermediate degree between the arsis and thesis, or strongly accented and unaccented member, as in þégn Hrṓðgā́res (–́|–́××̀), or fýrst fórð gewà̄t (–́|–́××̀), or hḗalǣ̀rna mǣ́st (–́×̀×|–́). In these cases Sievers gives the verse-member with this secondary accent the character of a subordinate arsis, or beat (Nebenhebung). But it is better, in view of the strongly marked two-beat swing of the hemistich, to look on such members with a secondary accent as having only the rhythmical value of unaccented syllables, and to call them theses with a slight accent. The two-beat rhythm of the hemistich is its main characteristic, for though the two beats are not always of exactly equal force[64] they are always prominently distinguished from the unaccented members of the hemistich, the rhythm of which would be marred by the introduction of an additional beat however slightly marked.

Cases in which the two chief beats of the hemistich are not of exactly the same force occur when two accented syllables, either both with chief accent or one with chief and the other with secondary accent, stand in immediate juxtaposition, not separated by an unaccented syllable. The second of these two accented syllables may be a short syllable with chief accent, instead of a long syllable as is the rule. But in either case, whether long or short, this second beat following at once on the first beat is usually uttered with somewhat less force than the first, as can be seen from examples like gebū́n hǽfdon, Beow. 117; tō hā́m fáran, 121; mid ǣ́rdǽge, 126. The second beat rarely predominates over the first. The cause of this variation in the force of the two beats is to be sought in the laws of the syntactical accent.

In other respects verse-members with a secondary accent obey the same laws as those with a primary accent. They usually consist of one long syllable, but if a member which has the arsis immediately precedes, a short syllable with a secondary accent may be substituted. Resolution of such verse members is rare, which shows that they are more closely related to the thesis than to the arsis of the hemistich. One unaccented syllable is sufficient to form the thesis (×), but the thesis may also have two or more unaccented syllables (××,×××..), their number increasing in proportion to their shortness and the ease with which they can be pronounced, provided always that no secondary accent intervenes. All of these unaccented syllables are reckoned together as one thesis, as against the accented syllable or arsis. The single components of such a longer thesis may exhibit a certain gradation of force when compared with one another, but this degree of force must never equal the force with which the arsis is pronounced, though we sometimes find that, owing to the varying character of the syntactical or sentence accent, a monosyllable which in one case stands in the thesis, may in another connexion bear the secondary or even the primary accent.

§ 23. The number of the unaccented syllables of the thesis was formerly believed to depend entirely on the choice of the individual poet.[65] Sievers first put this matter in its right light by the statistics of the metre.[66] He showed that the hemistich of the Old English alliterative line is similar to the Old Norse four-syllable verse, and is as a rule of a trochaic rhythm (–́×–́×). The proof of this is that in Beowulf, for instance, there are 592 hemistichs of the type –́×|–́× (as hȳ́ran scólde, 10), and that in the same text there are 238 of the type –́××|–́× (as gṓde gewýrcean, 20; hḗold þenden lī́fde, 57), making 830 hemistichs with trochaic or dactylic rhythm, as against eleven hemistichs of similar structure but with an unaccented syllable at the beginning, ×|–́×(×)|–́×, and even four or five of these eleven are of doubtful correctness. From these figures it seems almost beyond doubt that in the type –́×(×)|–́× the licence of letting the hemistich begin with an unaccented syllable before the first accented syllable was, generally speaking, avoided. On the other hand, when the first accented syllable is short with only one unaccented syllable as thesis (⏑́×), we find this initial unaccented syllable to be the rule, as genúmen hǽfdon Beow. 3167 (×|⏑́×|–́×), of which form there are 130 examples, while, as Rieger noticed, ⏑́×|–́× is rare, as in cýning mǣ́nan Beow. 3173. It is perhaps still more remarkable that while the form –́××|–́× occurs some 238 times, a verse of the form ×|⏑́××|–́× is never found at all. The numerical proportion of the form –́×|–́× (592 cases) to –́××|–́× (238 cases) is roughly 5 to 2, and that of ×|⏑́×|–́× (130 cases) to ×|⏑́××|–́× (no cases) is 130 to nothing. The quantity of the second arsis is, as bearing on the prefixing of unaccented syllables to the hemistich, much less important than the quantity of the first arsis. Hemistichs of the type –́×|⏑́× occur 34 times, and in 29 cases the last unaccented syllable is a full word, either a monosyllable or a part of a compound. The same type, with an initial unaccented syllable ×|–́×|⏑́× also occurs 34 times, but then the last syllable is quite unaccented. The proportion of the form –́×|–́× to the form ×|–́×|–́× is 592 to 11, and that of the form –́×|⏑́× to ×–́×|⏑́× is 34 to 34, a noticeable difference.

Further, it was formerly supposed that the number of unaccented syllables following the accented syllable was indifferent. This is not the case. The form –́××|–́× is found 238 times, and the form –́×|–́×× only 22 times. Many of the examples of the latter form are doubtful, but even counting all these the proportion of the two forms is 11 to 1.

If the two accented syllables are not separated by an unaccented syllable, that is to say, if the two beats are in immediate juxtaposition, then either two unaccented syllables must stand after the second arsis, thus –́|–́×× (a form that occurs 120 times in Beowulf), or an unaccented syllable must precede the first arsis and one unaccented syllable must follow the second arsis, thus ×–́|–́× (127 times in Beowulf), or with the second arsis short ×–́|⏑́× (257 times); the form –́|–́× does not occur.

From these statistics it results that hemistichs of the form –́×|–́× are met with about 17 times to one occurrence of the form –́×|⏑́×, and that on the other hand, the form ×–́|⏑́× is about twice as frequent as ×–́|–́×.

§ 24. The order of the verse-members in the hemistich. Every hemistich consists of two feet or measures, each containing an accented syllable. Usually these two feet or measures together contain four verse members, seldom five. In the hemistich of four members, which first falls to be considered, the measures may consist of two members each (2+2), or one may contain one member and the other three (1+3 or 3+1). A measure of one member has a single accented syllable only (–́); a measure of two members has an accented and an unaccented syllable, which may stand either in the order –́× or ×–́; a measure of three members has one accented and two unaccented syllables, one of which has a secondary accent, and the order may be either –́×̀× or –́××̀. Measures of two members may be grouped in three different ways so as to form a hemistich: i. –́×|–́× (descending rhythm); ii. ×–́|×–́ (ascending); iii. ×–́|–́× (ascending-descending)[67]; i. and ii. are symmetrical, iii. is unsymmetrical, but as the number of members in the feet of these three types (2+2 members) is the same, we may call them, as Sievers does, types with equal feet (gleichfüssige Typen), while the others (1+3 members or 3+1 members) may be called types with unequal feet, or measures.

The normal hemistich, then, which consists of four verse-members, will fall, according to the relative position of these measures or feet, into the following five chief types:

a. Types with equal feet (2+2 members)

b. Types with unequal feet

Theoretically type E might be looked on as a type with equal feet, if divided thus, –́×|×–́, but by far the greatest number of instances of this type show at the beginning of the hemistich one trisyllabic word which forbids such a division of feet, as wéorðmỳndum þā́h, Beow. 8.[68] Types like ××–́– and ×̀×–́–́, which we might expect to find, do not occur in Old English poetry. In addition to these ordinary four-membered hemistichs there are others lengthened by the addition of one syllable, which may be unaccented, or have the secondary accent. These extended forms (erweiterte Formen)[69] may be composed either of 2+3 members or of 3+2 members. These extended hemistichs must be carefully distinguished from the hemistichs which have one or more unaccented syllables before the first accented syllable, in types A, D, and E; such a prefix of one or more syllables is called an anacrusis (Auftakt).[70]

The simple five types of the hemistich admit of variation: i. by extension (as above); ii. by resolution (⏑́× for –́) and shortening of the long accented syllable (⏑́); iii. by strengthening of thesis by means of a secondary accent (Steigerung); iv. by increase in the number of unaccented syllables forming the thesis; also (less frequently) v. by variation in the position of the alliteration, and vi. by the admission of anacruses; the varieties produced by the last-mentioned means are not sub-types but parallel forms to those without anacruses.

In describing and analysing the different combinations which arise out of these means of variation, and especially the peculiar forms of the sub-types, the arrangement and nomenclature of Sievers will be followed.[71]

Analysis of the verse types.

I. Hemistichs of four members.

§ 25. Type A has three sub-types, A1, A2, A3.

The sub-type A1 (–́×|–́×) is the normal form with alliteration of the first arsis in each hemistich, or with alliteration of both arses in the first hemistich and one in the second, and with syllables in the thesis which are unaccented according to the usual practice of the language; examples are, þḗodnes þêgnas An. 3, hȳ́ran scólde Beow. 106, gómban gýldan Beow. 11. This is the commonest of all the types; it occurs in Beowulf, according to Sievers, 471 times in the first and 575 times in the second hemistich, and with the like frequency in the other poems.

The simplest modification of this type arises from the resolution of one or two long accented syllables. Examples of resolution of the first arsis are very numerous, cýninga wúldor El. 5, scéaðena þrḗatum Beow. 4, séofon niht swúncon Beow. 517,[72] níðer gewī́teð Beow. 1361. Examples of the resolution of the second arsis are less numerous, as wúldor cýninge El. 291, éllen frémedon Beow. 3, Scýldes éaferan Beow. 19, óft gefrémede Beow. 165; resolution of both in the same hemistich is rare, but is found, as gúmena géogoðe An. 1617, mǽgenes Déniga Beow. 155, gúmum ætgǽdere Beow. 1321.

The chief type is further modified by making the thesis after the first arsis disyllabic (rarely trisyllabic); the formula is then –́××|–×. This modification is frequent, as ríhta gehwýlces El. 910, gṓde gewýrcean Beow. 20, swéordum āswébban An. 72, súnnan ond mṓnan Beow. 94, fṓlce tō frṓfre Beow. 14, wḗox under wólcnum Beow. 8.

Resolution of the arsis may be combined with this disyllabic thesis, as (in the first arsis) wérum on þām wónge An. 22, éotenas ond ýlfe Beow. 112, or (in the second arsis) hā́lig of héofenum An. 89, hélpe gefrémede Beow. 551, or (in both) dúguðe ond géoguðe Beow. 160, hǽleð under héofenum Beow. 52.

The first thesis rarely exceeds two syllables; a thesis of three syllables is occasionally found, as sǽgde se þe cū́ðe Beow. 90, hwī́lum hie gehḗton Beow. 175, and this can be combined with resolution of the first arsis, as swéotulra ond gesȳ́nra An. 565, bítere ond gebólgne Beow. 1431; or with resolution of the second arsis, as ū́tan ymbe ǽðelne An. 873, wī́ge under wǽtere Beow. 1657; or with resolution of both, as réceda under róderum Beow. 310. Examples of thesis of four syllables are (in the first thesis) séalde þām þe hē wólde Beow. 3056, sécge ic þē tō sṓðe Beow. 591. A thesis with five syllables is still less common, as lǣ́ddon hine þā of lýfte Gū. 398, stṓpon þā tō þǣre stṓwe El. 716.

The cases in which the second thesis has two syllables are rare and to some extent doubtful, as wúndor scḗawian Beow. 841 and 3033.[73]

The anacrusis before the type –́×(×)|–́× is also of rare occurrence: examples are swā sǣ́ bebū́geð Beow. 1224, or, with resolution of the first arsis, swā wǽter bebū́geð Beow. 93. Most of the instances occur in the first hemistich; in this position the anacrusis may be polysyllabic (extending sometimes to four syllables), sometimes with resolution of the arsis, or with polysyllabic thesis. Examples: forcṓm æt cámpe An. 1327, gewāt æt wī́ge Beow. 2630; with resolution, ābóden in búrgum An. 78; genéred wið nī́ðe Beow. 828; disyllabic anacrusis ic wæs éndesǣ́ta Beow. 241; with resolution, þǣr wæs hǽleða hléahtor Beow. 612; trisyllabic anacrusis, oððe him Óngenþḗowes Beow. 2475; four-syllable anacrusis, þæt we him þā gū́ðgeatwa Beow. 2637; monosyllabic anacrusis with disyllabic thesis, as in mǣ́gðe gehwǣ́re Beow. 25, āblénded in búrgum An. 78; disyllabic anacrusis with disyllabic thesis, ge æt hā́m ge on hérge Beow. 1249; trisyllabic anacrusis with disyllabic thesis, þū scealt þā fṓre gefḗran An. 216; monosyllabic anacrusis with trisyllabic thesis, gemúnde þā sē gṓda Beow. 759; monosyllabic anacrusis with resolution of first arsis and trisyllabic thesis, ne mágon hie ond ne mṓton An. 1217; with resolution of second arsis, gewā́t him þā tō wároðe Beow. 234; disyllabic anacrusis, ne geféah he þǣre fǣ́hðe Beow. 109; combined with thesis of four syllables, ofslṓh þā æt þǣre sǽcce Beow. 1666.

The sub-type A2 is type A with strengthened thesis (i.e. a thesis with secondary accent) and with alliteration on the first arsis only. This sub-type has several varieties:

(i) A2a, with the first thesis strengthened (–́×̀|–́×); frequent in the second hemistich. The second arsis may be either long or short (–́×̀|–́×, or –́×̀|⏑́×). We denote –́×̀|–́× by A2al and –́×̀|⏑́× by A2ash, or, for brevity, A2l, A2sh. Examples of A2l are, gódspèl ǣ́rest An. 12, wī́sfæ̀st wórdum Beow. 626, hríngnèt bǣ́ron Beow. 1890; with resolution of the first arsis, médusèld bū́an Beow. 3066; with resolution of the second arsis, gā́rsècg hlýnede An. 238, hórdbùrh hǽleða Beow. 467; with resolution of both, fréoðobùrh fǽgere Beow. 522; with resolution of the strengthened thesis, súndwùdu sṓhte Beow. 208; resolution of the first arsis and thesis, mǽgenwùdu múndum Beow. 236; resolution of the first thesis and the second arsis, gū́ðsèaro gúmena Beow. 328.

Examples of A2sh are numerous, as wǣ́rfæ̀st cýning An. 416, gū́ðrìnc mónig Beow. 839, þrḗanȳ̀d þólað Beow. 284; it is exceptional to find the second arsis short when the thesis which precedes has no secondary accent, as Hrḗðel cýning Beow. 2436, Hrúnting náma Beow. 1458, ǽðeling bóren Beow. 2431; with resolution of the first arsis, séaronèt séowað An. 64, snótor cèorl mónig Beow. 909, sígerṑf cyning Beow. 619, mágodrìht micel Beow. 67, &c. Most of the hemistichs which fall under this head have double alliteration.

(ii) A2b, with the second thesis strengthened (–́×|–́×̀). Most of the cases of this type occur in the first hemistich; when they occur in the second hemistich the measure –́×̀ is usually a proper name, not a real compound. Examples: Gréndles gū́ðcræ̀ft Beow. 127, lḗofa Bḗowùlf Beow. 855; with resolution of the first arsis, gámol ond gūðrḕow Beow. 58; with resolution of the second arsis, béorna béaducræ̀ft An. 219; with resolution of both, séfa swā séarogrìm Beow. 595; with resolution of the strengthened thesis, lónd ond lḗodbỳrig Beow. 2472; with resolution of both the second arsis and thesis mǣ́g ond mágoþègn Beow. 408.[74]

This type may still further be varied by a first thesis of two or more syllables, ū́t on þæt ī́glànd An. 15, fólc oððe frḗobùrh Beow. 694, réste hine þā rū́mhèort Beow. 1800; by resolution of the first arsis, glídon ofer gārsècg Beow. 515, of the second, lā́d ofer lágustrḕam An. 423, sýmbel on sélefùl Beow. 620; by resolution of the thesis with secondary accent, éahtodon éorlscìpe Beow. 3173; the anacrusis is rarely found, as gesā́won séledrḕam Beow. 2253, and double alliteration (in the first hemistich) is the rule in this form of type A.

(iii) A2ab, with both theses strengthened –́×̀|–́×̀, bā́nhū̀s blṓdfā̀g An. 1407, gū́ðrìnc góldwlànc Beow. 1882, ǣ́nlī̀c ánsȳ̀n Beow. 251; with resolution of first arsis, wlítesḕon wrǽtlī̀c Beow. 1651, and of the second arsis, glḗawmṑd góde lḕof An. 1581, gū̀ðswèord géatolī̀c Beow. 2155, and of both first and second arsis, héorowèarh hételī̀c Beow. 1268; with resolution of the first (strengthened) thesis, nȳ́dwràcu nī́ðgrìm Beow. 193; with resolution of both the first arsis and the first thesis, býrelàde brȳ́d gèong Gū. 842; with resolution of the second strengthened thesis, égeslī̀c éorðdràca Beow. 2826; with resolution of the first and second thesis, fýrdsèaru fūslìcu Beow. 232. This form of the type has also as a rule double alliteration.

The sub-type A3 is type A with alliteration on the second arsis only and is limited almost entirely to the first hemistich. A strengthened thesis occurs only after the second arsis; this sub-type might therefore be designated A3b.

Verses falling under this head, with their alliteration always on the last syllable but one, or (in the case of resolution) on the last syllable but two, are distinguished by the frequent occurrence of polysyllabic theses extending to five syllables, in marked contrast to types A1 and A2 where theses of one or two syllables are the rule, longer theses the exception. In A3, however, shorter theses are met with along with the usual resolutions: a monosyllabic thesis in hwǣ́r se þḗoden El. 563, ḗow hēt sécgan Beow. 391; with resolution of first arsis, wúton nū éfstan Beow. 3102; with resolution of the second arsis, þús me fǽder mīn El. 528, íc þæt hógode Beow. 633; with disyllabic thesis, hḗht þā on úhtan El. 105, hǽfde se gṓda Beow. 205; with resolution of the first arsis, þánon he gesṓhte Beow. 463; with resolution of the second arsis, wéarð him on Héorote Beow. 1331; with strengthened second thesis, éart þū sē Bḗowùlf Beow. 506; with trisyllabic thesis, gíf þē þæt gelímpe El. 441, fúndon þā on sánde Beow. 3034; with resolution of the first arsis, hwǽðere mē gesǣ́lde Beow. 574, of the second arsis, sýððan ic for dúgeðum Beow. 2502; with strengthened second thesis, nṓ hē þone gífstṑl Beow. 168; with thesis of four syllables, swýlce hī mē gebléndon Cri. 1438, hábbað wē tō þǣm mǣ́ran Beow. 270; with resolution of the first arsis, útan ūs tō þǣre hȳ́ðe Cri. 865; with resolution of the first and second arsis, þóne þe him on swéofote Beow. 2296; with strengthened second thesis, nṓ þȳ ǣr þone héaðorìnc Beow. 2466; with thesis of five syllables, sýððan hē hine to gū̀ðe Beow. 1473; with thesis of six syllables, hȳ́rde ic þæt hē þone héalsbḕah Beow. 2173. These forms are also varied by monosyllabic anacrusis combined with monosyllabic thesis, þe ḗow of wérgðe El. 295, þæt híne on ýlde Beow. 22; with strengthened second thesis, þæt híne sēo brímwỳlf Beow. 1600; with disyllabic thesis, ne þéarft þū swā swī́ðe El. 940, gesprǽc þā sē gṓda Beow. 676; the same with resolution of the first arsis, gewítan him þā góngan Cri. 533; disyllabic anacrusis and disyllabic thesis, ne gefrǽgn ic þā mǣ́gðe Beow. 1012; with resolution of the second arsis, geséah hē in récede Beow. 728; with strengthened second thesis, ge swýlce sēo hérepà̄d Beow. 2259; monosyllabic anacrusis with trisyllabic thesis, on hwýlcum þāra bḗama El. 851; with four-syllable thesis, gewī́teð þonne on sealman Beow. 2461; with resolution of the first arsis, ne mā́gon hī þonne gehȳ́nan Cri. 1525; with resolution of the second arsis, gesā́won þā æfter wǽtere Beow. 1426. The last measure may be shortened exceptionally to ⏑́×, as wǽs mīn fǽder Beow. 262.

On the whole type A seems to occur more frequently in the first than in the second hemistich; in Beowulf out of the 6366 hemistichs of which the poem consists, 2819 fall under this type, and of these 1701 are first and 1118 second hemistichs.[75]

§ 26. The chief type B, ×–́|×–́, has apart from resolutions only one form. But as the second thesis may consist of either one or two syllables, we may distinguish between two sub-types, B1 (with monosyllabic second thesis) and B2 (with disyllabic second thesis). The commonest variation of the type occurs in the first thesis, which may be polysyllabic.

(i) The simplest form, sub-type B1, ×–́|×–́, is not very common; according to Sievers there are only 59 instances in the whole of Beowulf, as ond Hā́lga tíl Beow. 61, þām hā́lig gód An. 14; with resolution of the first arsis in séle þām hḗan Beow. 714, and of the second arsis, þurh rū̀mne séfan Beow. 278, and of both, ǣr súmeres cýme El. 1228. Hemistichs of this type, on the other hand, with a disyllabic first thesis are not uncommon, syððan fúrðum wḗox Beow. 914, him pā Scýld gewā́t Beow. 26; with resolution of the first arsis, under Héorotes hrṓf Beow. 403; with resolution of the second, þæt sēo céaster híder An. 207, and of both, æfter hǽleða hrýre Beow. 2053; a trisyllabic first thesis is also common, þēah þe hē ā́tres drýnc An. 53, oð þæt him éft onwṓc Beow. 56, sē þe on hánda bǽr Beow. 495; with resolution of the first arsis, forðan hīe mǽgenes crǽft Beow. 418; of the second arsis, ond hū þȳ þríddan dǽge El. 185; of both, þæt hē þā géoguðe wíle Beow. 1182; with first thesis of four syllables, ne hȳrde ic sī́ð ne ǣ́r El. 240, swylce hīe æt Fínnes hā́m Beow. 1157; with first thesis of five syllables (rare) siððan hē hire fólmum hrā́n Beow. 723, and with resolution of second arsis þonne hȳ him þurh mī́nne nóman Cri. 1351.

(ii) The sub-type B2, or B with disyllabic second thesis, is rarely found when the first thesis has only one syllable, þe drýhtnes bibṓd Cri. 1159, þū wá̄st gif hit is Beow. 272, þām wī́fe þā wórd Beow. 640; with resolution of the first arsis, þurh dároða gedrép An. 1446, and of the second, þurh níhta genípu Gū. 321; it is commoner with a disyllabic first thesis, þā of wéalle geséah Beow. 229, hē þæs frṓfre gebā́d Beow. 76; with resolution of the first arsis, mid his hǽleða gedríht Beow. 663, ofer wároða gewéorp An. 306; with trisyllabic first thesis, þonne hē ǣ́r oððe sī́ð El. 74, wes þū ūs lā́rena gṓd Beow. 269; with resolution of the first arsis, þēah hē þǣr mónige geséah Beow. 1614, and of the second arsis, þæt nǣfre Gréndel swā féla Beow. 592; with first thesis of four and five syllables, hwæðre hē in brḗostum þā gít An. 51, þæs be hire sē wílla gelámp Beow. 627.

Verses with trisyllabic second thesis are extremely rare and doubtful.[76] It should be noticed that, in this second type too, the thesis seldom consists of a second part of a compound, as hine fýrwìt brǽc Beow. 232, the exceptions are proper names, as nū ic Bḗowùlf þéc Beow. 947, ne wearð Héremṑd swā́ Beow. 1710.

Type B, according to Sievers, occurs 1014 times in Beowulf, of which 293 are in the first hemistich and 721 in the second.

§ 27. The Type C has three sub-types: (i) C1, the normal type ×–́|–́×, without resolution, as oft Scýld Scḗfing Beow. 4, gebū̀n hǽfdon 117. Here too the first thesis may consist of two, three, four, or five syllables, þæt hīe ǣ́ghwýlcne An. 26, þone gód sénde Beow. 13, ofer hrónrā́de Beow. 10, ǣr hē onwég hwúrfe Beow. 264, mid þǣre wǽlfýlle Beow. 125, þe ic him tṓ sḗce El. 319 þāra þe mid Bḗowúlfe Beow. 1052, oð þæt hine sémnínga An. 821, þāra þe hē him míd hǽfde Beow. 1625, swylce hīe ofer sǣ́e cṓmon, An. 247. (ii) C 2 is the normal type C with resolution of the first arsis, and is of such frequent occurrence that it may be looked on as a special type, on hérefélda An. 10, forscrífen hǽfde Beow. 106, in wórold wṓcun Beow. 60; a less common form is that with resolution of the first and second arsis, tō brímes fároðe Beow. 28, swā féla fýrena Beow. 164; sometimes with resolution of the second arsis only, tō sǣ́es fároðe An. 236 and 1660, for frḗan égesan An. 457, but not in Beowulf. The first thesis may have two, three, or four syllables, þā wið góde wúnnon Beow. 113, ofer lágustrǣ́te; with two resolutions, ic þæs wíne Déniga Beow. 350, hū sē mága frémede An. 639, þæt him his wínemā́gas Beow. 65, ne hīe hūru wínedríhten Beow. 863. (iii) C3 is type C with short second arsis, ×–́|⏑́×, and is pretty common, in gḗardágum Beow. 1, of fḗorwégum Beow. 37; the first thesis may have from two to five syllables, þæt wæs gṓd cýning Beow. 11, þæt hīe in bḗorséle Beow. 482, sē þe hine dḗað nímeð Beow. 441, ne meaht þū þæs sī́ðfǽtes An. 211, þonne hē on þæt sínc stárað Beow. 1486. Resolution seems to be avoided, though it occurs here and there, of hlíðes nósan Beow. 1892, on þǣm méðelstéde Beow. 1083. Thesis with secondary accent is not found. The number of hemistichs of type C in Beowulf is, according to Sievers, 564

§ 28. The type D always ends with a disyllabic thesis, of which the first is generally the second syllable of a compound and has the secondary accent. There are four sub-types. (i) D1 is the normal form, –́|–́×̀×, as hélm ǽlwìhta An. 118, fḗond máncỳnnes Beow. 164, wī́gwéorðùnga Beow. 176, wéard Scýldìnga Beow. 95, lándbúèndum Beow. 95, hríng gýldènne, Beow. 2810, hóf mṓdìgra Beow. 312, frḗan ū̀sèrne Beow. 3003. The chief variations arise from resolution of the first arsis, cýning ǽlmìhtig El. 145, fǽder álwàlda Beow. 316, mérelī́ðènde Beow. 255, flótan ḗowèrne Beow. 294, cýning ǣ́nìgne Beow. 1851, or of the second arsis, hḗan hýgegḕomor An. 1089, mǣ́g Hígelà̄ces Beow. 738 and 759; resolution of first and second arsis, hláden hérewǣ̀dum Beow. 1898, néfan Hérerī̀ces Beow. 2207. Hemistichs like wiht unhǣlo Beow. 120, which have compounds with un, may be read wíht únhǽlo according to type D2, or wíht unhǣ́lo according to type A, –́×|–́× (Sievers, Paul-Braune’s Beiträge, x. 251, and Kluge in Paul’s Grundriss, i², p. 1051). (ii) D2 is the same form, but with the thesis short and with secondary accent, –́|–́⏑̀× béorht blǽdgìfa An. 84, lḗof lándfrùma Beow. 31, strḗam ū́t þònan Beow. 2546, rǣ́d éahtèdon Beow. 172; with resolution of the first arsis, mǽgen sámnòde El. 55, mága Héalfdènes Beow. 189; with resolution of the second arsis, hórd ópenìan Beow. 3057, the only example. (iii) D 3 is the normal type, but with short second arsis (rare), –́|⏑́×̀×, éorðcýnìnga El. 1174; with resolution of the first arsis, rádorcýnìnges El. 624. (iv) D 4 has the form –́|–́××̀, and is closely allied to the type E (–́×̀×|–́), as it has the secondary accent on the last syllable of the thesis (Sievers, Paul-Braune’s Beiträge, x. 256), brḗost ínnanwèard An. 649, hólm ū̀p ætbæ̀r Beow. 519, fýrst fórð gewā́t ib. 210; varied by resolution of the first arsis, géaro gū̀ðe fràm An. 234, flóta fā́mighèals Beow. 218, súnu dḗað fornàm Beow. 2120; by resolution of the second arsis, wlánc Wédera lṑod 341, and of both first and second arsis, wlítig wéoruda hḕap An. 872; and resolution of the last thesis with secondary accent, wṓp úp āhàfen Beow. 128, wúnað wíntra fèla Ph. 580. Certain hemistichs which may belong to this sub-type admit of an alternative accentuation, and may belong to the following type; for example, scop hwlum sang Beow. 496 may be read –́|–́××̀, or as E –́×̀×|–́, so werod eall ārās Beow. 652.

§ 29. The type E has two sub-types, distinguished by the position of the syllable bearing the secondary accent; this syllable is generally the second syllable of a compound or the heavy middle syllable of a trisyllabic word with a long root-syllable.

E1 has the form –́×̀×|–́, the syllable with secondary accent standing first in the thesis, mṓdsòrge wǽg El. 61, wéorðmỳndum þā́h Beow. 8, Sū̀ðdèna fólc Beow. 463, ḗhtènde wǽs Beow. 159, hǣ́ðènra hýht Beow. 179, ǣ́nìgne þónc Cri. 1498, wórdhòrd onléac Beow. 259, úplàng āstṓd Beow. 760, scóp hwī̀lum sáng Beow. 496 (cf. above, § 29); varied by resolution of the first arsis, héofonrī̀ces weárd El. 445, Scédelàndum ín Beow. 19, wlítebèorhtne wáng Beow. 93, lífigènde cwṓm Beow. 1974, ǽðelìnges wḗox El. 12, médofùl ætbǽr Beow. 625, dúguð èall ārā́s Beow. 1791; resolution of the second arsis is rare, tī́rḕadge hǽleð An. 2 (the MS. reading ēadige must be corrected to ēadge, see Sievers, Beiträge, x. 459 on these middle vowels after long root-syllable), hélþègnes héte Beow. 142; resolution of both is rare, sélewèard āséted Beow. 668, wínedrỳhten frǽgen An. 921; resolution of the accented thesis, glḗdègesa grím Beow. 2651.

E2 has the last syllable of the thesis with secondary accent, and is very rare, –́××̀|–́, mórðorbèd strḗd Beow. 2437; with resolution of last arsis, gḗomorgìdd wrécen An. 1550, bǣ́ron ū̀t hrǽðe An. 1223.

II. Hemistichs of five members.

§ 30. Hemistichs of five members (extended) occur much more rarely than the normal types of four members. The extended types are denoted by the letters A*, B*, C*, &c.

Type A* has two sub-types distinguished by the position of the syllable with the secondary accent.

(i) A*1, –́×̀×|–́× occurs chiefly in the first hemistich, gódbèarn on gálgan El. 719; with resolution of first arsis, géolorànd tō gū́ðe Beow. 438; with thesis of two unaccented syllables following on the secondary accent, glǽdmṑd on gesíhðe Cri. 911, fǽstrǽdne geþṓht Beow. 611; with final thesis strengthened by secondary accent, gā́stlī̀cne góddrḕam Gū. 602, gámolfèax ond gū́ðrṑf Beow. 609.

(ii) A*2 –́××̀|–́× may possibly occur in mā́ððumfæ̀t mǣ́re Beow. 2405, wúldorlḕan wéorca Cri. 1080; with resolution of the thesis with secondary accent, mórðorbèalo mága Beow. 1079. Possibly, however, the syllables um in māððum and or in wuldor and morðor are to be written m and r, so that the scansion of the hemistich would be A2 –́–̀|–́× and –́⏑̀͜×|–́× .[77]

Type B* ×̀×–́|×–́ does not seem to occur in O.E. poetry, though it does in Old Norse.

Type C* in the forms ×̀×–́|–́×,×̀×⏑́×|–́×,××–́|⏑́× are also not found in O.E.

Type D* on the other hand does occur, but almost exclusively in the first hemistich. It has three sub-types: (i) D*1 –́×|–́××, sī́de sǣ́næ̀ssas Beow. 223, áldres órwḕna Beow. 1002; with resolution of the first arsis, ǽðeling ā́nhȳ̀dig Beow. 2668; more commonly with resolution of the second arsis, mǣ́ton mérestræ̀ta Beow. 514; with resolution of both, lócene léoðosỳrcan Beow. 1506. (ii) D*2 –́×|–́⏑̀×, mǣ́re méarcstàpa Beow. 103, éaldor Éastdèna Beow. 392; with resolution of the first arsis, ǽðele órdfrùma Beow. 263; with resolution of the second arsis, mṓdges mérefàran Beow. 502, Bḗowulf máðelòde Beow. 505, &c. (iii) D*3 –́×|⏑́×̀× is not found. (iv) D*4 –́×|–́××̀ is rare, grḗtte Gḗata lḕod Beow. 625, þrȳ́ðlīc þégna hḕap Beow. 400; with resolution of first arsis, éaforan éllorsī̀ð Beow. 2452; with resolution of the second, ȳ́ðde éotena cỳn Beow. 421; with resolution of the secondarily accented syllable, wī́n of wúndorfàtum Beow. 1163; this type is varied by anacrusis, ongínneð gḗomormṑd Beow. 2045, and by anacrusis together with disyllabic thesis in the second foot, oferswám þā síoleða bigòng Beow. 2368.

Type E* does not occur in O.E. poetry.[78]

§ 31. To assign the different hemistichs of a poem to these various types we have to follow as a regulating principle the natural word accent and syntactical accent of each sentence. In some cases the similarity or relation with one another of the types renders it a matter of difficulty to determine exactly to what particular type a hemistich may belong. Systematic investigations as to the principles which govern the combinations of the five types in pairs to form the long line have not yet been made. From such observations as have been made it would appear that by preference hemistichs of different rhythmical structure (ascending and descending) were combined with a view to avoid a monotonous likeness between the two halves of the verse.[79].

§ 32. The combination of two hemistichs so as to form a long line is effected by means of alliteration, one at least of the two fully accented syllables being the bearer of an alliterative sound. In no case is an unaccented syllable or even a syllable with a secondary accent allowed to take part in the alliteration. This fact, that secondarily accented syllables are debarred from alliterating, is another proof that it is better to look on them as belonging to the thesis rather than to the arsis of the verse.

The Principles of Alliteration.

§ 33. Quality of the Alliteration. It is an all but invariable rule that the correspondence of sounds must be exact and not merely approximate. A g must alliterate to a g, not to a c, a d to a d, not to a t, and so on. There is, however, one remarkable exception, namely, that no distinction is made between the guttural c (as in cūðe) and the palatal c (as in cēosan), nor between the guttural g (as in god) and the palatal g (as in gierede), not even when the latter represents Germanic j (as in geong, gēar). With exceptions hereafter to be noted, a consonant followed by a vowel may alliterate with itself followed by another consonant: thus cūðe alliterates not only with words like cyning, but with words like cræft, cwellan; and hūs alliterates not only with heofon but with hlēapan, hnǣgan, &c. The fact that different vowels, as ī, ū, and æ in īsig ond ūtfūs æðelinges fær Beow. 33, alliterate together is only an apparent exception to the strictness of the rule, as it is really the glottal catch or spiritus lenis[80] before all vowels which alliterates here. Wherever a vowel seems to alliterate with an h we are justified in assuming a corruption of the text, as in óretmecgas æfter hǽleðum frægn Beow. 332, where Grein improves both sense and metre by substituting æðelum for hæleðum; other examples are Beow. 499, 1542, 2095, 2930. In some cases where foreign names beginning with h occur we occasionally find instances of this inexact alliteration, as Hólofernus únlyfigendes Jud. 180 and 7, 21, 46, contrasted with Hólofernus hógedon āninga 250; in later works as in Ælfric’s Metrical Homilies we find alliteration of h with a vowel not only in foreign names but with native words, as

and h before consonants (viz. r, l, w) is disregarded as

It is important to observe that the combinations st, sc, sp are not allowed to alliterate with each other or with words beginning with s not followed by a consonant, but st can alliterate only with st, sc only with sc, sp only with sp; thus spere and scyld, stillan and springan, sǣ and styrman do not count as alliterations. The invariable practice is seen in the following lines:—

In later times this rule was not so strictly observed. The metrical Psalms alliterate sc with s and sw with s, as

but sp and st do not alliterate with each other or with s. In Ælfric all these combinations of consonants alliterate indifferently with each other or with s + another consonant or with simple s, as in

Sometimes in Ælfric the alliterating letter does not stand at the beginning of the word,

and the alliteration may even fall on an unaccented particle as in

For a full account of Ælfric’s alliteration the reader may be referred to an interesting essay by Dr. Arthur Brandeis, Die Alliteration in Aelfric’s metrischen Homilien, 1897 (Programm der Staatsrealschule im VII. Bezirk in Wien).

§ 34. Position of the alliterative words. Out of the four accented syllables of the line two at least, and commonly three, must begin with an alliterative sound, and this alliteration still further increases the stress which these syllables have in virtue of their syntactical and rhythmical accent.

The position of these alliterative sounds in the line may vary in the same way as their number. The general laws which govern the position of the alliteration are the following:—(i) One alliterating sound must, and two may occur in the first hemistich; (ii) In the second hemistich the alliterating sound (called the head-stave[82]) must fall on the first of the two accented syllables of that hemistich, and the second accented syllable in the second hemistich does not take part in the alliteration at all; (iii) When there are three alliterating sounds in the whole line two of them must be in the first hemistich and only one in the second. Examples of lines with three alliterating sounds:

Lines with only two alliterative sounds, the first of which may coincide with either of the accented syllables of the first hemistich (the second of course coinciding with the first accented syllable of the second hemistich) are very common:

If the first hemistich contains only one alliterative sound this alliteration generally falls on the more emphatic of the two accented syllables of the hemistich which is usually the first, as

In the type A the single alliteration of the first hemistich not unfrequently falls on the second accented syllable, such cases being distinguished, as A3

In types C and D the single alliteration of the first section must always fall on the first accented syllable which in these types is more emphatic than the second. In types B and E alliteration on the second arsis would bring the alliteration too near to the end of the hemistich, and is therefore rare.

Double alliteration in the first hemistich occurs in all of the five types, and chiefly when the two accented syllables have equally strong accents. It is, therefore, least common in C ×–́|–́× where the first arsis predominates over the second, and is most frequent in the strengthened hemistichs, in D, E, A2, and in the five-membered D* types, where it is the rule.[83]

A third form of alliteration, though much less important and frequent than these two, occurs when the second accented syllable of the second hemistich shares in alliteration, in addition to the first accented syllable. There are then two different pairs of alliterative sounds distributed alternately between the two hemistichs. The commonest form of this double alliteration of the whole line is represented by the formula a b | a b, as

less commonly by the formula a b | b a:

verses corresponding to the formula a a | b b are not found in early poetry. No doubt certain instances of this double alliteration may be accidental, but others seem intentional.

The foregoing rules as to alliteration are strictly observed in the early and classic poetry, but in later times certain licences crept in. Three of these may be noticed. (i) The second accented syllable of the second hemistich is allowed to carry the alliteration instead of the first accented syllable,

(ii) Both accented syllables of the second hemistich alliterate with one accented syllable of the first hemistich,[84]

(iii) The four accented syllables of the line all alliterate together,

In the majority of cases the same alliterative letter is not employed in two successive lines, but we find cases like

and earlier in Andreas 70, 197, 372, 796, 815, 1087, &c., or in Beowulf 403, 489, 644, 799, 865, 898, &c.

And even three lines in succession, as

This usage, which in Middle English became very popular, is noticeably frequent in the poem of Judith, probably with a view to emphasis. Many examples of such pairs of verses are to be found collected by Dr. A. Brandeis from Ælfric.

The unaccented words may begin with the same letter as the accented words which bear the alliteration proper,[85] as

or one of the unaccented words may begin with the same letter as an accented word which does not alliterate, as

this of course has nothing to do with alliteration, though in later times it was often mistaken for it.

Verses without any alliteration at all, as

occur only in late OE. poetry like Ælfric’s Homilies, and when rhyme was beginning to creep in.

§ 35. Alliteration in relation to the parts of speech and to the order the order of words. Both alliteration and the whole structure of the alliterative line depend in the first place on the natural or etymological accent of the single words, and next on the syntactical accent which these words bear in their relation to one another in the sentence. Just as only the accented syllable of a single word can take part in the alliteration, so only can those words take part in it which are marked out in the sentence as important and therefore strongly accented.

The relative degree of stress is influenced at times by the rhetorical accent, but generally speaking we find a certain gradation of accent among the accented words depending on their intrinsic and not on their rhetorical importance in building up the sentence.

Two general principles may be laid down: (1) If the syntactical value of the two accented syllables of the hemistich is not equal, then the word which has the stronger accent of the two is chosen to alliterate. In the second hemistich it is always the first accented word (the ‘head stave’), in the first hemistich it is generally the first accented word, though the second accented word may alliterate as well. (2) If the two accented syllables of the section are equal in syntactical value, then the first alliterates, and when double alliteration is allowed the second may also alliterate.

The various grammatical classes of words are treated in regard to the alliteration in the following way:—

Nouns, including adjectives and the infinitives and participles of verbs, have the strongest accent of all words in the sentence. A noun therefore takes precedence over the other parts of speech among which it occurs and has the alliteration, as

If two nouns occur in the same hemistich it is always the first which alliterates,

The only exceptions are when a special rhetorical emphasis is given to the second word.

When a noun and two adjectives or two nouns and an adjective occur in the same hemistich, one of these is always subordinated to the other, and the two together are treated as a combination. In such cases, where there is double alliteration in the hemistich, the position of the alliterating words may be either a a x, or a x a, the subordinate element (x) standing either in the last or the second place in the hemistich,

In the case of single alliteration, it is always the first of the nouns or adjectives which alliterates.

The verb (excluding the infinitive and participles) is usually less strongly accented than the noun. It may therefore precede or follow the noun or adjective without alliteration, either in the arsis or thesis, as

On the other hand, when a hemistich consists only of one noun and one verb, the verb may alliterate, as

When a substantive and an adjective are closely combined, a verb in the same hemistich may alliterate, as

In formulas consisting of noun + verb the noun predominates over the verb and takes the alliteration, as

But if the verb is emphatic it may alliterate though there is a noun in the same hemistich; this occurs chiefly in the second hemistich, as

but a few instances are found in the first hemistich, as

When one of two verbs in the hemistich is subordinate to the other the verb in the subordinate clause alliterates, having a stronger accent than the verb in the main clause,

If the two verbs are co-ordinate the first alliterates,

in the first hemistich both verbs commonly alliterate,

The adverb. Adverbs of degree like micle, swīðe, ful, &c., are commonly found in the thesis, and even if they stand in the arsis they usually do not alliterate, as

When adverbs of this kind have a special rhetorical emphasis they may of course alliterate, as

Adverbs which modify the meaning of the word which they precede alliterate, as

Adverbial prepositions preceding the verb also alliterate,

but not when they follow the verb,

Adverbs derived from nouns are more strongly accented than the verb which they modify and therefore alliterate,

Pronouns (and pronominal adjectives like monig, eall, fela) are usually enclitic, and precede or follow the noun without alliterating, as

With a special rhetorical accent they may alliterate even if they precede the noun,

The pronoun selfand the pronouns compounded with the prefix ǣ (ǣghwā, ǣghwylc, &c.) are usually accented, and alliterate if they form the first arsis of the hemistich, as

Prepositions, conjunctions, and particles are not as a rule accented, but prepositions if followed by an enclitic pronoun take the accent and alliterate, as

Whether words of these classes, standing in the first arsis of the first hemistich along with another alliterating word, were intended also to alliterate is somewhat uncertain, but it is probable that they were so, as in

These laws of accentuation are strictly observed only in the older poetry; by the end of the tenth century, in Byrhtnoth, the Metres of Boethius and the Psalms, they are frequently neglected.

§ 36. Arrangement and relationship of verse and sentence. The following rules hold good in general for the distribution of the sentence or parts of the sentence between the hemistichs of the verse. Two distinct pauses occur in every alliterative line, one (commonly called the caesura) between the first and second hemistichs, the other at the end of the line, and these pauses are determined by the syntactical construction; that is to say, they coincide with the end of a clause or lesser member of the sentence. The hemistich must contain such parts of the sentence as belong closely together; and such coherent parts, as, for example, a pronoun and noun to which it refers or adverb with adjective, must not be separated from one another by the caesura, unless the pronoun or adverb is placed in the second arsis of the hemistich, as

In Beowulf this separation of closely connected words is permitted only if the word standing in the arsis alliterates at the same time. Longer parts of a sentence may be separated both by the caesura and the pause at the end of the line. The syntactical connexion between the parts of a sentence thus broken up makes the unity of the parts clear, and when the division occurs in the caesura between the two halves of the verse, the alliteration common to both hemistichs serves further to emphasize this unity.

The single alliterative lines are connected with one another by the prevailing usage of ending the sentence not at the end of the completed line, but at the end of the first hemistich or in the middle of the line, and of beginning a new sentence with the second hemistich. The great variety of expression, and the predilection for paraphrase by means of synonyms which is so characteristic of OE. poetry, contribute to make such breaks in the line easy. Whatever may be the explanation, it is certainly the fact that in the OE. poetry the metrical and syntactical members do sometimes coincide, but at other times overlap in a way which does not admit of being reduced to rule.[86]

The Lengthened Verse

§ 37. Besides the normal four-beat line (with two beats to each hemistich) there is in OE. and Old Saxon another variety, the lengthened line (Schwellvers) with three beats in each hemistich.[87] These verses occur in almost all OE. poems, either isolated or more commonly in groups, and occasionally we find lines with one hemistich of two beats and the second hemistich of three, like.

and Jud.96, Crist1461, &c., or with a lengthened hemistich of three beats and a normal hemistich of two beats, like

and Sat.605, Gnom. Ex.200, &c.

In the Psalms and in Cynewulf’s Juliana they are wanting entirely, in Cynewulf’s Elene out of 1321 verses there are only fourteen lengthened whole lines, and three lengthened hemistichs. Examples of groups of these lengthened verses will be found in Gen. 44–46, 1015–1019, 2167–2169, 2854–2858; Exodus 569–573, Dan. 59–106, 203–205, 226–228, 238–246, 262–271, 435–438, 441, 448, 452–458; Judith 2–12, 16–21, 30–34, 54–61, 63–68, 88–99, 272–274, 289–291, 338–349; Satan 202, 232, 237, 605, Crist 621, 889, 922, 1050, 1382–1386, &c., and in many of the smaller poems.[88]

Lengthened verses of a looser type occur in Salomon and Saturn, and Genesis B; they have unusually long theses of four or five unaccented syllables after the first accented syllable, as

or have equally long anacruses before the first accented syllable, as

It is not always possible to draw a sharp distinction between regular lines with somewhat long first theses and lengthened lines. The general tone and rhythm of the passage in question help to determine whether we have the normal or the lengthened line before us. The lengthened line occurs in places where the sense demands a solemn and slow rhythm, in other cases where the movement of the passage is quicker we may assume a normal four-beat line with a long anacrusis, or a polysyllabic thesis in the middle of the hemistich. What distinguishes clearly undoubted examples of the lengthened verse is that in each hemistich we find three beats and three feet of equal and independent value. But, as in the usual two-beat hemistich of the normal line, both beats need not be equally strong, so in the three-beat hemistich the three beats do not always stand on the same footing as regards stress, nor does the position of the stronger beat require to be always the same in the two hemistichs. The beats which are accompanied by alliteration are, generally speaking, stronger than those without alliteration. In the employment of alliteration and in the structure of the hemistich the lengthened line is closely allied to the normal line.

Alliteration. 1. The first hemistich has commonly two alliterative sounds, which fall as a rule on the first and second beats:

more rarely on the second and third beats, as in

sometimes on the first and third beats, as

Now and then we find hemistichs with three alliterations:

and others with one alliteration only, in which case the alliteration falls more rarely on the first beat, as

than on the second, as

2. In the second hemistich the chief alliterative sound, the head-stave, generally falls on the second accented syllable, as in the last example, and only exceptionally on the first accented syllable, as

§ 38. The origin and structure of the lengthened verse. It is clear from the comparative infrequency and the special use to which it is put that the lengthened line must be looked upon as originating in some way from the normal four-beat line. Two explanations of its development have been given. The first, which is Sievers’s original view,[90] is that a foot or measure with the form –́... (i.e. one accented syllable plus several unaccented ones) was prefixed to one of the five normal types; hence –́× prefixed to A would give the form –́×|–́×–́×, and –× prefixed to B would give –́×|×–́×–́. The other explanation, given by Luick,[91] is that the lengthened hemistich is due to a blending of several types of the normal kind in this way. The hemistich starts with the beginning of one of the normal types A, B, C, then with the second accented syllable another type is begun and continued, as if the poet found the original beginning inadequate to express his emotion.

The manner in which the blending of two normal types results in new lengthened types of three beats will be seen in the following illustrations:

As Prof. Sievers himself[92] has accepted this theory (or, at least, has recognized it as a convenient method of exhibiting the structural varieties of the lengthened line), we shall adopt it here.

Of the fifteen different possible combinations of the original types, some do not actually occur, but with the sub-types to be taken into consideration we get no less than eighteen different types of the regular lengthened whole line, and these again admit of variations by means of resolution of accented syllables, polysyllabic theses, &c.

Only the most commonly occurring forms of the lengthened hemistich will be given here; for the others the reader may be referred to Sievers.[93].

§ 39. By far the most common type is A A (some 525 examples),

–́×...–́×.–́×,

as in

or with resolution of the first accented syllable in the first hemistich,

and in the second hemistich,

with resolution of the second accented syllable in the second hemistich,

or of each of the three accented syllables in the second hemistich,

The chief variation of this type arises from the prolongation of the first thesis, which may run from one to six syllables. At the same time the usual resolutions may be introduced, as in the following examples: Ordinary type, –́××||–́×|–́×, very common,

with resolution of the first accented syllable,

with resolution of the last two accented syllables,

type with trisyllabic thesis, –́×××||–́×|–́×,

with resolution of the first accented syllable,

thesis of four to six syllables, (–́×.....||–́×|–́×),

Less frequently the second foot has two unaccented syllables, and in that case the first foot has either one or sometimes two unaccented syllables, thus

(i) –́×||–́××|–́×, or (ii) –́××||–́××|–́×,

as (i) saā́ þū Ábele wū̀rde. Gen. 1019;

with resolution of the first arsis,

(ii) rínca tō rū̀ne gegángan. Jud. 54.

Type A2A, –́×̀–́×–́×, which is type AA with secondary accent on the first thesis, occurs, according to Sievers, some twenty times, and always in the first hemistich. Examples are,

with resolution of the last arsis,

with disyllabic second thesis,

Type A*A, –́.×̀×|–́×.|–́×, which is AA strengthened and with disyllabic first thesis, is nearly as common as A2A, and is always in the first hemistich, as for example,

with trisyllabic first thesis,

Type A B, –́×...–́×.–́, some thirty instances equally distributed between the first and second hemistichs. Examples are,

Type A C, –́×...–́–́×, about twenty-nine instances, of which more than the half occur in the first hemistich, as

saType A D, –́×..–́–́××̀, is rarer, occurring about twelve times, apparently only in the first hemistich, as

Type A E, –́×..–́×̀×.–́, somewhat more common than the last, and in both hemistichs, as

Type B A, ×.–́×...–́×.–́×, about 120 instances, has as its simplest form, ×–́×–́×–́×, as

with disyllabic thesis after the first arsis, ×–́××–́×–́×, as

with trisyllabic thesis, ×–́×××–́×–́×, as

the initial thesis or anacrusis is rarely disyllabic.

Type B B, ×.–́×...–́×.–́, about nine times and mostly in the first hemistichs, as

with resolution of two of the accented syllables,

Type B C, × . . –́× . . . –́–́ ×, nearly as common as the last and nearly always in the first hemistich, as

Type B D, ×.–́×..–́–́×̀×, about sixteen times, and in either hemistich, as

Type C A, ×–́–́×.–́×, with some fifteen examples, of which eight are in the first hemistich, as

Type C C, ×....–́–́–̆́×, occurs only nine times, of which six are in the second hemistich, as

with resolution of the first accented syllable,

Other combinations are given by Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik, § 95, but these occur so rarely or are so doubtful that they need not be mentioned here. A few lengthened hemistichs have four beats, as

and others in Sievers’s Altgermanische Metrik, § 96.

Formation of Stanzas and Rhyme.

§ 40. OE. poetry is mainly narrative, and does not run into any kind of recurring stanza or strophe, but is entirely stichic. Traces of an arrangement of lines so as to form a stanza are found in Dēor, the Runic Poem, the Psalms and Hymns, the so-called First Riddle, and in the Gnomic verses of the Exeter Book, which may be compared to the Old French ‘tirades’.[94]

On the other hand, end-rhyme of the two hemistichs, combined with alliteration, is not very uncommon, though in most cases it seems only an incidental ornament, as

In the Rhyming Poem of the Exeter Book we have eighty-seven lines in which the first and second hemistichs rhyme throughout, and in some passages of other poems, noticeably in the Elene, vv. 114–115, and vv. 1237–1251, in which Cynewulf speaks in his own person, or Crist 591–595, And. 869–871, 890, Gūthl. 801, Phoen. 15–16, 54–55; assonance is found not unfrequently alongside of perfect rhyme, as in Gūthl. 802, Phoen. 53. These places are sufficient to prove a systematic and deliberate use of rhyme, which serves to accentuate the lyrical tone of the passages.

Monosyllabic rhymes such as nān: tān (Rhym. Poem 78), rād: gebā́d (ib. 16), onlā́h: onwrā́h (ib. 1) are called masculine, and disyllabic rhymes like wóngum: góngum (ib. 7), géngdon: méngdon (ib. 11), or trisyllabic hlýnede: dýnede (ib. 28), swínsade: mínsade (ib. 29), bífade: hlífade (ib. 30), are called feminine.

According to their position in the hemistich, rhymes fall into two classes (a) interior rhymes like hónd rónd gefḕng Beow. 2609, stī́ðmṑd gestṓd Beow. 2567, in compounds wórd-hòrd ontḗac Beow. 259, in co-ordinate formulae like þā wæs sǣ́l and mǣ́l Beow. 1008, wórdum and bórdum El. 24, grund ond sund And. 747, and as so-called grammatical rhymes lāð wið lāðum Beow. 440, béarn æfter béarne, Gen. 1070; (b) sectional rhymes joining the two halves of one line, as

not unfrequently, very often in the Rhyming Poem, two, three, four or more alliterative lines are connected in this fashion.

The OE. end rhymes are either (a) complete rhymes as hond: rond, gefǣ́gon: geþǣ́gon, or (b) assonances, in which only the vowels correspond, as wæf: læs El. 1238; wrā́ðum: ā́rum Crist. 595; lúfodon: wúnedon And. 870; that the assonances are not accidental is clear from the fact that they occur alongside of perfect rhymes.[95]

CHAPTER III
THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE FREER
FORM OF THE ALLITERATIVE LINE IN LATE
OLD ENGLISH AND EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH

A. Transitional Forms.

§ 41. Increasing frequency of Rhyme. The alliterative line was, as we have seen, the only kind of verse known in English poetry down to the end of the Old English period. In the eleventh century, however, the strict conventions which governed the use of alliteration began to be relaxed and, at the same time, end-rhyme began to invade the alliterative line, and by this means it was resolved in the course of time into two separate lines. The process by which this came about is of great importance in enabling us to follow the further development of English versification. It has two varieties:—

1. Systematic combination of end-rhyme and alliteration.

2. Unintentional or accidental combination of rhyme and alliteration.

The former—the intentional combination of rhyme with alliteration—never became popular in Old English; indeed, the few examples previously quoted are all that have been preserved. In these examples the hemistichs of each line conform to the ancient rules with regard to their rhythmic and alliterative structure, but are more uniform in type than was usual in the older poetry, and are more closely paired together by the use of final rhyme, which occurs in all its three varieties, monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic.

The rhythm of the verse is mostly descending, Type A being the prevalent form, while Types D and E occur more rarely. The Types B and C, however, are also found. Possibly this kind of verse was formed on the model of certain Mediaeval Latin rhymed verses, or, somewhat more probably, on that of the Old Norse ‘runhenda’, as this poetic form may have been made known in England by the Old Norse poet, Egil Skallagrimsson, who in the tenth century had lived in England and twice stayed at the court of King Æõelstan.

§ 42. Of greater interest than this systematic combination of alliteration and rhyme is the irregular and more or less unintentional occurrence of rhyme which in the eleventh century is found frequently in the native metre.

Isolated instances of rhyme or assonance may be met with even in the oldest Old English poems. For certain standing expressions linked by such a similarity of sound, mostly causing interior rhyme (i.e. rhyme within a hemistich), were admitted now and then in alliterative poetry, e.g.

In other cases such rhymes are to be found at the end of two hemistichs,

Examples of this kind occur not unfrequently in several early OE. poems, but their number increases decidedly in the course of time from Beowulf, Andreas, Judith, up to Byrhtnoth and Be Dōmes dæge.

From the two last-mentioned poems, still written in pure alliterative verse, a few examples of rhyming-alliterative verses, or of simply rhymed verses occurring accidentally among the normal alliterative lines, may also be quoted here:

Thus it may be taken for granted that end-rhyme would have come into use in England, even if Norman-French poetry had never been introduced, although it is certainly not to be denied that it only became popular in England owing to French influence.

But can this influence explain the gradually increasing use of end-rhyme in some OE. poems written shortly before the Norman Conquest (as e.g. Byrhtnoth, Be Dōmes dæge, the poetical passage in the Saxon Chronicle of the year 1036), or are we to attribute it to the influence of mediaeval hymn poetry, or, lastly, to the lingering influence of the above-mentioned Old Norse ‘runhenda’? It is not easy to give a decided answer to these questions.

In any case it would appear that towards the end of the Old English period combined Mediaeval Latin and French influence on English metre became of considerable importance on account of the constantly growing intercourse between the British isles and the continent. This may be seen in the more frequent use of rhyme, as indeed was only to be expected in consequence of the increasing popularity of Norman-French and Mediaeval-Latin poetry in England and the reception of Norman-French words into the language.

This combination of alliteration and rhyme, however, only becomes conspicuous to a considerable extent for the first time in the above-mentioned passage of the Saxon Chronicle, and in another passage of the year 1087.[96]

The chief difference between these verses and those of the Rhyming Poem is this, that the former have not such a symmetrical structure as the latter, and that rhyme and alliteration are not combined in all of them, but that regular alliterative lines, rhyming-alliterative lines, and lines with rhyme only occur promiscuously, as e.g. in the following lines (4–7) of the above-mentioned passage of the Chronicle of the year 1036:

The verses of the year 1087 of the Saxon Chronicle have a similar but on the whole less rhythmical structure. In some of the lines the hemistichs are neither joined by alliteration, nor by end-rhyme, but merely by the two-beat rhythm of each of them; cf. 11. 1–5:

On the other hand, the poetical piece of the Saxon Chronicle on Eadweard of the year 1065 is written in perfectly regular alliterative lines.

These two ways of treating the old alliterative line which occur in the latter part of the Saxon Chronicle, and which we will call the progressive and the conservative treatment, indicate the course which this metre was to take in its further development. Out of the long alliterative line, separated by the caesura into two hemistichs, again connected by rhyme, there sprang into existence a short rhyming couplet. This was by no means identical with the three-beat couplet evolved from two rhyming hemistichs of a line on the model of the French Alexandrine, nor with the short four-beat couplets modelled on the French vers octosyllabe, but had points of similarity enough to both, especially to the former one, to be easily used in conjunction with them, as several Early English poems show.

The conservative treatment of the old alliterative line, which probably at no time was altogether discontinued, was revived in the thirteenth and especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when it degenerated again in the same way as the progressive line had done several centuries before.

B. The ‘Proverbs of Alfred’ and Layamon’s ‘Brut’.

§ 43. The first subject which we have to consider here is the further development of the progressive form of the alliterative line, the representatives of which[98] are closely connected in their rhythmic form with the two specimens of the poetical parts of the Saxon Chronicle quoted above. From Alfred’s Proverbs we take No. xv (ll. 247–66):

The metre of Layamon’s Brut may be illustrated by the following passage (ll. 13841–13882):

These extracts illustrate only the general metrical character of the two literary monuments, the versification of which in many passages considerably deviates from the type here exhibited. It frequently shows a still more arbitrary mixture of the different kinds of verse, or a decided preference for some of them over the others. But the examples given will suffice to show that here, as in the two passages from the Saxon Chronicle quoted above, we have four different kinds of verse distinguished by the different use of rhyme and alliteration, viz.:

1. Regular alliterative lines, which are very numerous, and at least in the first half of Layamon’s Brut, possibly throughout the poem, form the bulk, e.g. Prov. xv. 247–8, Layamon, 13847–8, 13851–2, 13855–6, 13859–60, 13867–8, 13881–2, or

2. Rhyme (or assonance) and alliteration combined; equally numerous, e.g. Prov. xv. 253–4, Lay. 13841–2, 13845–6, 13869–70, &c., or

3. Verses with rhyme (or assonance) only, without alliteration, also not unfrequent, e.g. Prov. xv. 249–50 ff., or Lay. 13853–4, &c.

4. Four-beat verses without either rhyme or alliteration, occurring comparatively rarely, and in most cases probably to be attributed to corruption of the text. Examples:

It is certain that these four different forms of verse cannot have been felt by the poets themselves as rhythmically unlike; their rhythmic movement must have been apprehended as essentially one and the same.

§ 44. Nature and origin of this metre. Theories of Trautmann and Luick. We need not here discuss the theory of Prof. Trautmann, who endeavours to show that the hemistichs of Layamon’s verse were composed in imitation of the four-beat short-lined metre in which the Old High German poet Otfrid had written his religious poem Krist, a form which, according to Trautmann and his followers, had been frequently employed in late Old English and early Middle English poetry. References to the criticisms of this hypothesis, by the present writer and others, are given by G. Körting in his Encyklopädie der Englischen Philologie, p. 388, and by K. Luick in Paul’s Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie, ed. 2, II. ii. 152. The author of this book, in his larger work on the subject (Englische Metrik, i. §§ 67–73), has shown, as English and German scholars had done before him, that Layamon’s verse has its roots in the Old English alliterative line. Twelve years after the publication of that work this theory received further confirmation at the hands of Prof. Luick, who has shown in Paul’s Grundriss (l.c.) that the five types of the Old English alliterative line, discovered by Prof. Sievers, reappear (although in a modified form) in the lines of Layamon’s Brut. But we are unable wholly to agree with Prof. Luick’s view on the origin and nature of this metre.

In order to explain the origin of Layamon’s verse he starts from the hypothesis of Prof. Sievers[99] that the Old Germanic alliterative verse, as historically known, which was intended to be recited, and therefore not restricted to uniformity of rhythm, originated from a primitive Old Germanic verse meant to be sung, and therefore characterized by rhythmic regularity. According to Prof. Luick this primitive metre, although not represented by any extant example in Old English, had never quite died out, and forms the basis of the metre of Layamon and his predecessors in early Middle English. For this ingenious hypothesis, however, no real evidence exists. On the contrary, the fact that the beginnings of the peculiar kind of metre used by Layamon can be traced back to purely alliterative Old English poems, where they occur amongst regular alliterative lines, and therefore undoubtedly must be of the same rhythmical structure, seems to be decisive against Prof. Luick’s theory.

For the same reason it is impossible to follow Prof. Luick in regarding Layamon’s line as having an even-beat rhythm, and containing not only two primary accents, but two secondary accents as well. A further strong objection to this view is to be found in the circumstance, that in the early part of Layamon’s Brut, although rhyme already occurs not unfrequently, alliterative lines decidedly predominate; in the passage consisting of forty long lines (ll. 106–185, quoted in our Altenglische Metrik, pp. 152–3), we have thirty-three regular alliterative lines and only five rhymed lines, two of which are alliterative at the same time. Even in the middle portion of Layamon’s Chronicle, where the poet, as Prof. Luick thinks, must have attained to a certain skill in handling his metre, alliterative lines are in some passages quite as numerous as rhymed ones. In the passage quoted above (p. 68), for example, which consists of twenty-one long lines, eleven of them are alliterative and ten are rhymed. On the other hand, in the continuation of this passage (quoted Altengl. Metrik, p. 156), containing twenty-nine long lines, the reverse is the case, the number of alliterative lines being only seven, and that of rhymed and assonant lines twenty-two in all; of the latter, however, eleven are alliterative at the same time.

While then it might be admissible to speak of progressive neglect of alliteration and of increasing predilection for end-rhyme on the part of the poet, as he advances with his work, it is not in accordance with the facts to assert that ‘alliteration had ceased to play its former part, and had been reduced to the level of a mere ornament of the verse’. On the contrary, in the first part of the Chronicle alliteration is the predominant form, and, as the work advances, it is still used to a considerable extent as a means to connect the two hemistichs or short lines so as to form one long line. The strict laws formerly observed in the use of alliteration, it is true, are not unfrequently disregarded, chiefly with respect to the head-stave, which often falls on the fourth accented syllable of the long line; and other licences (first occurring in Ælfric’s Metrical Homilies) may be met with. Nevertheless both Alfred’s Proverbs and Layamon’s Brut (as is sufficiently shown by the many specimens quoted in our Altenglische Metrik, pp. 150 ff.), contain a great number of perfectly regular alliterative lines. The fact that, in the second half of Layamon’s Chronicle, end-rhyme is used more and more frequently as a means to connect the two hemistichs, is with much more probability to be explained by the continual occupation of the poet with the Norman-French original poem, and by the increasing influence which its short octosyllabic couplets must naturally have exercised upon his own rhythms, than by a supposed intention of the poet to write in ‘primitive Germanic four-beat song-metre’, the very existence of which is hypothetical. Furthermore, the fact that in some (not all or even most) of the passages, where end-rhyme is used almost exclusively, e.g. in the passage quoted above (ll. 13883–940), an even-beat rhythm is distinctly noticeable, can be explained quite naturally by the influence of the Norman-French original, the even-measured verses of which the poet was translating.

But even supposing that Layamon intended to use the primitive Germanic four-beat song-metre in his translation of Wace’s Chronicle, although it certainly was not intended for singing, what can have been his reason for composing the first half of his work, and a very considerable portion of the rest, in a rhythmical form which only to a small extent shows the peculiarities of a rhyming even-beat metre, whereas the main part of it consists of the native unevenly stressed alliterative verse? It is quite incorrect to say that the author in the course of his work not unfrequently fell back into the alliterative verse. The fact is just the opposite: the author started by using the native alliterative verse to which he was accustomed, and gradually came to adopt the rhymed verse of the Norman-French chronicle which he was translating, without, however, entirely giving up the former metre. Alliteration and end-rhyme, which he used sometimes separately and sometimes in combination, were evidently looked upon by Layamon as equally legitimate means for connecting his hemistichs or short lines.

§ 45. Number of stresses. Quite as unfounded as the assertion that Layamon’s verse is of an even-beat nature is the other assertion that it contains two primary and two secondary accents, and that the second of these secondary accents in verses with disyllabic endings may fall on a syllable which by its etymology ought to have no accent.

This statement is refuted by the treatment of rhyme in Layamon’s Brut and in some earlier poems of a similar form or containing the same kind of verse.

Not only in the Brut, but also in several Old English and earlier Middle English poems, we meet both with regular rhymes and with simple assonances and other still more imperfect correspondences in sound intended to serve as rhymes.

Examples of actual rhyme in the Brut are the monosyllabic pairs: seon: beon 13837–8, king: þing 13883–4, cniht: riht 13887–8; besides inexact rhymes like mon: anān 13605–6, 13615–16, mon: dōn 13665–6, 13677–8, wīn: in 14349–50, 14998–9, chin: wīn 14994–5; disyllabic rhymes: icúmen: gúmen 13787–8, gṓde: flṓde 13791–2, sṓhten: rṓhten 13803–4, ṓðer: brṓðer 13841–2, chī̀lde: wī́lde 13870–1, pḗre: hḗre 13871–2, hálle: álle 13981–2. We see no reason to accent these last-mentioned rhymes differently from similar rhymes occurring in Old English poems, as e.g. wédde: aspḗdde Andr. 1633, wúnne: blúnne ib. 1382, bewúnden: gebúnden Jud. 115, stúnde: wúnde Byrhtn. 271, &c.

Examples of the more numerous group formed by assonances are tō : idōn 13801–2, lond: gold 13959–60, strong: lond 13969–70, and disyllabic assonances like cníhten: kínges 13793–4, wólden: londe 13821–2, &c.

These are strictly parallel with instances like wæf: læs El. 1238, onlā́g: hād ib. 1246, or like wrā́ðum: ā́rum Crist 595, lýre: cýme Phoen. 53, rǣ́dde: tǣ́hte By. 18, flā́nes: genāme ib. 71, hlḗorum: tḗarum Be Dōmes dæge 28, &c., and must, in our opinion, be metrically interpreted in exactly the same way. That is to say, the root-syllable must, not only in real assonances like cníhten: kínges, lónde: strónge, but also in consonances like Péohtes: cníhtes, mónnen: ínnen, be looked upon as the chief part of the rhyme, and the flexional endings, whether rhyming correctly or incorrectly, must be regarded as forming only an unessential, unaccented, indistinctly heard part of the rhyme, just as they admittedly do in the similar Old English assonances quoted above.

Now, as it is inconsistent with the two-beat rhythm of the hemistich in Old English verse, to attribute a secondary accent to those endings, although they were in some cases more distinctly pronounced than the Middle English endings, it is impossible to suppose that the Middle English endings bore a secondary accent. A further objection is that although the syllables which, according to Luick’s theory, are supposed to bear a secondary accent are of course usually preceded by a long root-syllable, it not unfrequently happens that a disyllabic word with long root-syllable rhymes with one having a short root-syllable, in which case the ending is not suited to bear a secondary accent at all, e.g. flúȝen: únnifṓge 14043–4, to-fóren: grḗten 14071–2, sǣ́res: wólde 14215–16, fáreð: iuḗren 14335–6, icúmen: Þréoien 14337–8, lágen (=laws): lónde 14339–40, húnden: lúuien 14480–1, scóme: sṓne 14604–5, cúmen: hálden 14612–13, scípe: brṓhte 14862–3, fáder: unrǣ́des 14832–3, fáder: rǣ́des 14910–11, fṓten: biscópen 14821–2, iwī́ten: scipen 14251–2, wī́ten: wenden 15060–1, gúme: bisī́den 15224–5, fréondscìpe: séoluen 15226–7, wúde: wéien-lǣ́len 15508–9, ibóren: béarne 15670–1, biȝáte: wéorlde-rī́che 15732–3, scáðe: fólke 15784–5, biswíken (pret. pl.): cráften 29016–17, aȝíuen: ȝélden 29052–3, biuóren: fū̀sen 29114–15, súne: pḗode 29175–6, idríuen: kínerī́chen 29177–18, grúpen (pret. pl.): mū̀ȝen 29279–80, stúden (=places): bérnen 29285–6, &c.

The only cases in which a secondary accent seems to be required for an unaccented final syllable are such rhymes as the following:—hálì: forþí 13915–16 (cf. Altengl. Metrik, p. 160); men: cómèn 13997–8 (MS. B: men: here), men: dédèn 13975–6, isómned wés: lóndès 25390–1, and so forth.[100] But rhymes of this kind are in comparison to the ordinary disyllabic or feminine endings so very rare (occurring, for the most part, in lines which admit of a purely alliterative scansion, or which have come down to us in an incorrect state), that they have no bearing on the general rhythmic accentuation of those final syllables, or on the rhythmic character of Layamon’s verses in general (cf. p. 78, end of § 47).

§ 46. Analysis of verse-types. In turning now to a closer examination of the rhythmic structure of the metre in Layamon’s Brut and in the somewhat earlier Proverbs of Alfred, we are glad to find ourselves more nearly than hitherto (though still not altogether) in agreement with the views of Prof. Luick.

It is no small merit of his to have shown for the first time that the five types of rhythmic forms pointed out by Sievers as existing in the alliterative line are met with also in each of the four forms of verse of Layamon’s Brut and of the Proverbs. And here it is of interest to note that not only are the normal types of frequent occurrence (chiefly in the Proverbs), but the extended types also, especially in Layamon’s Brut, are met with even more frequently.

On account of our limited space only a few examples of each of the five types can be given in this handbook.

Instead of quoting hemistichs or isolated short lines as examples of each of the single types A, B, C, D, E, we prefer always to cite two connected short lines, and to designate the rhythmic character of the long line thus originating by the types of the two hemistichs, as follows: A + A, A* + B, B* + C, C* + E, &c., where A*, B*, C* signify the extended types, to be discussed more fully below, and A, B, C, &c., the normal types. This mode of treatment is necessary in order that our examples may adequately represent the structure of the verse. The short lines are always connected—either by alliteration, by rhyme (or assonance), or by both combined, or sometimes merely by identity of rhythm—into pairs. These pairs of short lines are regarded by Luick as even-measured couplets, while we regard them as alliterative long lines; but on either view each of them forms a coherent unity. We believe that an examination of the couplet or long line as an undivided whole will show unmistakably that the assumption of the even-measured character of Layamon’s verse is erroneous, or at least that it applies only in certain cases, when the metre is strongly influenced by Romanic principles of versification. The examples are for the most part the same as those which Prof. Luick has quoted,[101] but we have in all cases added the complementary hemistichs, which are generally of somewhat greater length:

A + A: Ich hátte Héngest, | Hórs is my bróðer. Lay. 13847–8.

A*+ A: and ích be wulle rǽchen | déorne rúnen. ib. 14079–80.

B + A: þær þa sǽxisce mén | þæ sǽ isóhten. ib. 14738-9.

B(E?) + A: hw hi héore líf | léde schólde. Prov. i. 15–16.

A + B: lónges lýves, | ac him lýeþ þe wrénch. ib. x. 161–2.

B*+ A: vmbe fíftene ȝér | þat fólc is isómned. Lay. 13855–6.

B + C: and eoure léofue gódd | be ȝe tó lúteð. ib. 13891–2.

B + C: ne wurð þu néver so wód, | ne so wýn-drúnke. Prov. xi. 269–70.

A + C: mi gást hine iwdárðeð | and wírð stílle. Lay. 17136–7.

C + C: for þat wéorc stóndeð | inne Írlónde. ib. 17176–7.

A*+ D: kómen to þan kínge | wíl-tíþende. ib. 17089–90.

D + A*: vólc únimete | of móni ane lónde. ib. 16188–9.

E + E: fíf þusend mén | wúrcheð þer ón. ib. 15816–17.

B*+ E: þæt he héfde to iwíten | séouen hundred scíþen. ib. 15102–3.

D + *A: for nys no wrt uéxynde | a wúde ne a wélde. Prov. x. 168–9.

A*+ D: þat éuer mvwe þas féye | fúrþ ýp-holde. ib. 170–1.

It is easy to observe that it is only when two identical types, like A + A, C + C, E + E, are combined, that an even-beat rhythm (to some extent at least) can be recognized; in all the other combinations this character is entirely absent.

§ 47. Extended types. We now turn to the more numerous class of such couplets or long lines which in both their component hemistichs exhibit extended variations of the five types, resulting from anacrusis or from the insertion of unstressed syllables in the interior of the line. These verses, it is true, are somewhat more homogeneous, and have a certain resemblance to an even-beat rhythm in consequence of the greater number of unaccented syllables, one of which (rarely two or more) may, under the influence of the even-beat metre of the Norman-French original, have been meant by the poet to be read with a somewhat stronger accentuation. We are convinced, however, that in feminine endings, in so far as these are formed, which is usually the case, by the unaccented endings -e, -en, -es, -eþ, &c., these final syllables never, or at most only in isolated cases, which do not affect the general character of the rhythm, have a stronger accent or, as Prof. Luick thinks, form a secondary arsis. As little do we admit the likelihood of such a rhythmic accentuation of these syllables when they occur in the middle of the line, generally of such lines as belong to the normal types mentioned above.

It is convenient, however, to adopt Luick’s formulas for these common forms of Layamon’s verse, with this necessary modification, that we discard the secondary accent attributed by him to the last syllable of the types A, C, D, accepting only his types B and E without any change. We therefore regard the normally constructed short lines of Layamon’s metre—so far as they are not purely alliterative lines of two accents, but coupled together by rhyme or assonance, or by alliteration and rhyme combined—as belonging to one or other of the following two classes: (1) lines with four accents and masculine or monosyllabic endings (types B and E); and (2) lines of three accents and feminine or disyllabic endings (types A, C, D). In this classification those unaccented syllables which receive a secondary stress are, for the sake of brevity, treated as full stresses—which, indeed, they actually came to be in the later development of the metre, and possibly to some extent even in Layamon’s own verse.

Assuming the correctness of this view, the chief types of Layamon’s verse may be expressed by the following formulas, in which the bracketed theses are to be considered optional:

As these types may be varied by resolutions in the same way as the primary types, there arise various additional formulas such as the following:

Other variations may be effected by disyllabic or even polysyllabic theses in the beginning (‘anacruses’) or in the middle of the verse instead of monosyllabic theses.

Apart from these another frequently occurring variation of type C must be mentioned which corresponds to the formula (×)×̀×–́×–́×, and may be designated (with Professors Paul and Luick) as type C^a, because the position of its accented syllables points to type C, while on the other hand it bears a certain resemblance to type A.

The following examples, many of which have been quoted before by Luick, may serve to illustrate these types of short lines or rather hemistichs and their combination in couplets or long lines, in which a normal hemistich is often followed by a lengthened one and vice versa:

Types with resolutions:

The first hemistich of the last line offers a specimen of a variation of the ordinary types with feminine endings (chiefly of A, C, and C^a), designated by Prof. Luick as A₁, C₁, C^a₁, and showing the peculiarity that instead of the ending –́× somewhat fuller forms occur, consisting either of two separate words or of a compound word, and thus corresponding either to the formula –́×̀, or, if there are three syllables, to the formula –́××̀, or in case of a resolution (as in the above example) to the formula –́×⏑́×. We differ from Prof. Luick, however, in admitting also endings corresponding to the formula ⏑́×̀×.

As a rule, if not always, such forms of verse are occasioned by the requirements of rhyme. This is not the case, it is true, in the following purely alliterative line:

but in other verses it is so, e.g.:

and similarly (not corresponding to –́××̀, as Prof. Luick thinks):

but the formula –́××̀is represented by the following verses:

In the last but one of these examples this accentuation is corroborated in the Jesus College MS. by the written accent on the word gódne, whereby not only the rhyme -lyng: king is shown to be an unaccented one, but at the same time the two-beat rhythm of the hemistich is proved as well as that of the preceding hemistich. Moreover, the alliteration in all these examples is a further proof of the two-beat character of their rhythm.

§ 48. It was owing to the use of these two more strongly accented syllables in each verse which predominate over the other syllables, whether with secondary accents or unaccented, that the poets, who wrote in this metre, found it possible to regard the different kinds of verse they employed as rhythmically equivalent. These were as follows: (1) purely alliterative lines with hemistichs of two stresses, (2) extended lines of this kind with secondary accents in the middle of the hemistich, (3) rhyming-alliterative or merely rhyming lines with a feminine ending and a secondary accent in the middle of the verse, or with a masculine ending and two secondary accents, one on the last syllable, as is also the case with the corresponding verses mentioned under the second heading. These two last-mentioned verse-forms are very similar to two popular metres formed on the model of Romanic metres. The former of them—the hemistich with three stresses (one of which is secondary) and feminine ending, together with the much rarer variety that has a masculine ending—resembles the sections of the Alexandrine; and the hemistich with a masculine ending (more rarely a feminine) and four stresses (two of which have secondary accents only) is similar to the short four-beat couplet, and also to the first section of the Septenary line (the second section being similar to the former three-beat group). It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that this metre of Layamon in its different forms (that of the purely alliterative line included) is in several Middle English poems, chiefly in The Bestiary, employed concurrently (both in separate passages and in the same passage) with the above-mentioned foreign metres formed on Romanic or mediaeval-Latin models. By this fact the influence of the Romanic versification on the origin and development of this form of the native verse gains increased probability.[102]

The limits of our space do not permit of further discussion of this peculiar metre, which, as presented in the extant examples, appears rather as in process of development than as a finished product, and of which a complete understanding can be attained only by elaborate statistical investigation.

C. The progressive form of the alliterative line, rhymed throughout. ‘King Horn.’

§ 49. The further development of the Layamon-verse is very simple and such as might naturally be expected from its previous history.

The use of final rhyme becomes constant, and consequently alliteration, although remnants of it still are noticeable even in short lines connected together, becomes more and more scarce.[103]

The unaccented syllables are interposed between the accented ones with greater regularity; and among the unaccented syllables the one (or, in some sub-species of the verse, more than one) which is relatively stronger than the rest receives full metrical stress, or at least nearly approaches the fully-stressed syllables in rhythmical value.

This form of the metre is represented by a short poem[104] consisting of only twelve lines, belonging to the first half of the thirteenth century, and by the well-known poem King Horn[105] (1530 lines) which belongs to the middle of the same century.

The prevailing rhythmical form of this poem is exemplified by the following verses, which for the sake of convenience we print here, not in the form of couplets (as the editors, quite justifiably, have done), but in that of long lines as they are written in the Harleian MS.:

This form occurs in more than 1300 out of the 1530 short lines of which the poem consists. It is evident that the rhythm of these lines is nearly the same as in the following taken from earlier poems:

If those syllables which have the strongest accent in the unaccented parts of these verses are uttered a little more loudly than was usual in the alliterative line the rhythm becomes exactly the same as in the corresponding verses of King Horn, where the three-beat rhythm already has become the rule.

This rule, however, is by no means without exceptions, and even the old two-beat rhythm (which may have been the original rhythm) is, in the oldest form of the poem, sometimes clearly perceptible, rarely, it is true, in both hemistichs, as e.g. in the following line:

but somewhat oftener in one of them, as in the following:

Of this type of verse a great many examples are of course to be met with in the earlier alliterative poems:

The third type (three beats with masculine ending), which is of rarer occurrence, is represented by the following lines:

As corresponding lines of earlier poems may be quoted:

The fourth type (four beats with masculine ending), which occurs somewhat oftener, has the following form:

The corresponding rhythm of the earlier poems occurs in verses like:

The fifth type (four beats with feminine endings) is represented by the following verses:

As corresponding verses of earlier poems we quote:

The circumstance that these different types of verse occur in different poems promiscuously makes it evident that they must all have been developed from one original rhythmical form. It is clear that this fundamental type can only be found in the old two-beat alliterative hemistich, the more so as this kind of verse is the very metre in which the earlier poems Byrhtnoth and Be Dōmes Dæge for the greatest part are written, and which is exemplified in about a third part of the poetical piece of the Saxon Chronicle of 1036 and a fifth part of the later-piece of 1087, and again very frequently in Alfred’s Proverbs and in Layamon’s Brut, and which still can be traced as the original rhythm of King Horn

§ 50. The evidence of the metre of this poem, showing its affinity to the alliterative line and its historical origin from it, is so cogent that it is unnecessary to discuss the theories of Prof. Trautmann and the late Dr. Wissmann, both of whom, although from different points of view, agree in ascribing a four-beat rhythm to this metre.[106]

The frequent use again in this poem of the types of line occurring in Layamon’s Brut, as pointed out by Prof. Luick (l. c.), puts the close connexion of the metre of King Horn with that form of the alliterative line beyond doubt. We cannot, however, in conformity with the view we have taken of Layamon’s verse, agree with Prof. Luick in assigning a secondary accent to the last syllable of the feminine ending of the ordinary three-beat verse, in which the greater part of King Horn is written. Prof. Luick himself does not insist upon that particular point so strongly for this poem as he did for the earlier poems written in a similar metre.

The following examples serve to show that the same extended types of line which were found to be the commonest in Layamon’s Brut (cp. p. 77) recur as the most usual types also in this poem:

A + C: Álle bèon he blíþe | þat tò my sóng lýþe! 1–2.

A + A: A sáng ihc schàl ȝou sínge | of Múrrȳ̀ þè kínge. 2–3.

A + A: He fónd bì þe strónde, | aríued òn his lónde, 35–6.

B + C: Àll þe dáy and àl þe nī́ȝt, | tìl hit spráng dái lìȝt. 123–4.

B + B: Fàirer nis nón þàne he wás, | hè was bríȝt sò þe glás. 13–14.

C + C: Bì þe sé síde, | ase hè was, wóned (⏑́×) ríde. 33–4.

C + A: Of þìne méstére, | of wúde and òf rivére. 229–30.

D + A: Schípes fíftène | with sárazìn[e]s kéne. 37–8.

C + A: Þe chìld him ánswérde, | sóne so hè hit hérde. 199–200.

B + E: Hè was whít sò þe flúr, | róse-rèd was hìs colúr. 15–16.

In most cases we see that identical or similar types of verse are connected here so as to form a couplet (printed by us as one long line). Even where this is not so, however, the two chief accents in each short line serve to make all the different forms and types of verse occurring in this poem sound homogeneous. This admits of a ready explanation, as the poem, in which no stanzaic arrangement can be detected, although styled a ‘song’ (line 2), was certainly never meant to be sung to a regular tune. On the contrary, it was undoubtedly recited like the ‘Song’ of Beowulf—probably not without a proper musical accompaniment—by the minstrels.

At all events the treatment of the words with regard to their rhythmic use in this poem does not deviate from that of Layamon.

§ 51. The two poems are of the same period, and in both the etymological and syntactical accentuation of natural speech forms the basis of the rhythmic accentuation. Monosyllabic words and the accented syllables of polysyllabic words having a strong syntactical accent are placed in the arsis; unaccented inflectional syllables as a rule form the theses of a verse; second parts of compounds and fully sounding derivative syllables are commonly used for theses with a somewhat stronger accent, and may, if placed in the arsis, even bear the alliteration, or, if they are less strongly accented, the rhyme:

Unaccented inflexional syllables as a rule stand in the thesis of a verse. Only in exceptional cases, which admit of a different explanation (see above, pp. 74 and 76), they may bear the rhythmical accent if the rhyme demands it.

That a thesis in Layamon’s Brut and in Alfred’s Proverbs may be disyllabic or even trisyllabic both in the beginning and the middle of a line is evident from the many examples quoted above.

In King Horn, where the division of the original long lines into two short ones has been carried out completely, and where the rhythm of the verse has consequently become more regular, the thesis, if not wanting entirely, as usually the case, in the types C, D, E, is generally monosyllabic. But, as the following examples, faírer ne mìȝte 8, þe paíns còme to lónde 58, þanne schólde withùten óþe 347, will show, disyllabic theses do also occur, both after the first and second arsis, and in the beginning of the line.

CHAPTER IV
THE ALLITERATIVE LINE IN ITS CONSERVATIVE
FORM DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES

A. The alliterative verse without rhyme.

§ 52. The progressive or free form of the alliterative line came to an end as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, when it broke up into short rhyming couplets. The stricter form was for nearly three centuries longer a very popular metre in English poetry, especially in the North-Western and Northern districts of England and in the adjacent lowlands of Scotland. The first traces, however, of its existence after the Norman Conquest are to be found in the South of England, where some poetical homilies and lives of saints were written at the end of the twelfth and in the beginning of the thirteenth century which are of the same character, both as to their subjects and to their metre, as the poetical paraphrases and homilies written by Ælfric. These poems are Hali Meidenhad (a poetical homily), the legends of St. Marharete, St. Juliana, and St. Katherine. These poems have been edited for the Early English Text Society, Nos. 18, 13, 51, 80; the first three by Cockayne as prose-texts, the last by Dr. Einenkel, who printed it in short couplets regarded by him as having the same four-beat rhythm (Otfrid’s metre) which he and his teacher, Prof. Trautmann, suppose to exist in Layamon and King Horn.[107] The Homilies have no rhymes.

The form of these homilies and legends occasionally exhibits real alliterative lines, but for the most part is nothing but rhythmical prose, altogether too irregular to call for an investigation here. Some remarks on passages written in a form more or less resembling alliterative verse may be found in our Englische Metrik, vol. i, § 94.

It is quite out of the question to suppose these Southern works, with their very irregular use of alliteration and metre, to have had any influence on the metrical form of the very numerous alliterative poems written in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Midland and Northern districts of England. It is, however, not at all likely that alliterative poetry should have sprung up there without any medium of tradition, and that it should have returned to the strict forms of the Old English models. Nor can we assume that it was handed down by means of oral tradition only on the part of the minstrels from Old English times down to the fourteenth century. The channel of tradition of the genuine alliterative line must be sought for in documents which for the most part have been lost.

A few small remnants, however, have been preserved, viz. a charm in a MS. of the twelfth century (cf. Zupitza, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, xxxi. 49), a short poem, entitled ‘Ten Abuses’, belonging to the same period (E. E. T. S. 49, p. 184), a prophecy of five lines contained in the chronicle of Benedict of Peterborough (Rerum Britannicarum Scriptores, 49, ii. 139), finally a prophecy ascribed to Thomas of Erceldoune (E.E. T. S., vol. 61, xviii, Thom. of Erc., ed. by A. Brandl, p. 26). But these pieces, treated by Prof. Luick in Paul’s Grundriss, ed. 2, II. ii, p. 160, are either too short or are too uncertain in text to admit of our making definite conclusions from them.

But from the middle of the fourteenth century onward we have a large number of poems composed in regular alliterative verse, e.g. King Alisaunder (Als.) and William of Palerne (W.), both in E. E. T. S., Extra-Ser. No. 1; Joseph of Arimathie (J.A.), E. E.T. S. 44; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Gr.), E.E. T. S. 4; Piers Plowman (P. P.), by W. Langland, E. E. T. S., Nos. 17, 28, 30, 38, 54; Pierce the Plowman’s Crede (P. P. Cr.), E. E. T. S. 30; Richard the Redeles (R. R.), E. E. T. S. 54; The Crowned King (Cr. K.), ibid.; The Destruction of Troy, E. E.T. S. 39, 56; Morte Arthure, E. E. T. S. 8; Cleanness and Patience, E. E. T. S. 1; The Chevalere Assigne, E. E.T. S., Extra-Ser. 6; and others of the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries: see Prof. W. W. Skeat’s list in ‘Bishop Percy’s Folio MS.’, London, 1867 (ed. Furnivall and Hales), vol. iii, p. xi, and many recent publications of the Early English Text Society.

On the structure of this metre the opinions of scholars differ a good deal less than on that of the progressive or free form of the alliterative line. Yet there are a few adherents of the four-beat theory who apply it to the alliterative line of this epoch, amongst others Rosenthal (‘Die alliterierende englische Langzeile im 14. Jahrhundert,’ Anglia, i. 414 ff.). The two-beat theory, on the other hand, has been upheld also for this form of the alliterative line by Prof. W. W. Skeat, Essay on Alliterative Poetry, Percy Folio MS. 1867 (ed. Furnivall and Hales), by the present writer in Englische Metrik, i, pp. 195–212, and by Prof. Luick, Anglia, xi, pp. 392–443 and 553–618, and subsequently in Paul’s Grundriss, ed. 2, II. ii, pp. 161–3.

§ 53. The use and treatment of the words in the verse is on the whole the same as in the Old English period. The chief divergence is, that in this period of the language the difference between long and short syllables was lost, in consequence of the lengthening of short vowels in open syllables which had taken place in the interval, and that consequently the substitution of a short accented syllable and an unaccented one for a long accented syllable (the so-called resolution) was no longer admissible. Otherwise syllables with a primary accent, syllables with a secondary accent, and unaccented syllables are treated just as in the Old English poetry. Accented syllables are as a rule placed in the arsis, as are also second parts of compounds. Other syllables with secondary accent (derivative and inflectional syllables) are only in exceptional cases placed in the arsis of a verse.

It is of special interest, however, to notice that words of Romanic origin which in the course of time had been introduced into the language are in many cases accented according to Germanic usage. Words of which the last syllable was accented in French have in their Middle-English form the chief accent thrown on a preceding, frequently on the first, syllable, and in consequence of this the originally fully accented syllable in trisyllabic words receives the secondary accent and is treated in the rhythm of the verse in the same way as syllables with a secondary accent in English words. The laws, too, which in Old English affect the subordination and position of the parts of speech in their relationship to the rhythm of the verse and to the alliteration, remain, generally speaking, in force. It is remarkable that ‘if an attributive adjective is joined to a substantive, and a verb to a prepositional adverb, the first part of these groups of words still has the chief accent’ (Luick). The relationship, on the other hand, of verse and sentence is changed. While in Old English poetry run-on-lines were very popular and new sentences therefore frequently began in the middle of a line, after the caesura, we find that in Middle English, as a rule, the end of the sentence coincides with the end of the line. Hence every line forms a unity by itself, and the chief pause falls at the end, not, as was frequently the case in Old English times, after the caesura.

§ 54. Alliteration. On the whole, the same laws regarding the position of the alliterative sounds are still in force as before; it is indeed remarkable that they are sometimes even more strictly observed. In the Destruction of Troy, e.g. triple alliteration according to the formula a a a x is employed throughout.

Alongside of this order of alliteration we find in most of the other poems the other schemes of alliteration popular in Old English times, e.g. a x a x, x a a x, a b a b, a b b a:

Irregularities, however, in the position of the alliteration are frequently met with, e.g. parallel alliteration: a a, b b:

or the chief alliterative sound (the ‘head-stave’) may be placed in the last accented syllable (a a x a):

or it may be wanting entirely, especially in William of Palerne:

and there are even found a certain number of verses without any alliteration at all in Joseph of Arimathie:

In such cases it may sometimes be noticed that a line which has no internal alliteration is linked by alliteration with a preceding or with a following line, in the same way as was to be observed already in the last century of the Old English period (cf. p. 50):

Again an excess of alliteration is found, which happens in different ways, either by admitting four alliterative sounds in one line (a a a a) as was sometimes done even in Old English:

or by retaining the same alliterative sound in several consecutive lines, e.g. :

or, finally, by allowing the somewhat more strongly accented syllables of the theses to participate in the alliteration:

By the increasing use of this kind of alliteration it ultimately degenerated so much that the real nature of it was completely forgotten. This is evident from the general advice which King James VI gives in his Revlis and Cavtelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie (Arber’s Reprint, p. 63):

He then gives a description of this kind of verse which makes it evident that he looked upon ‘tumbling verse’ as a rhythm of two beats in each hemistich or four beats in the full line, for he says:

King James VI was a contemporary of the last poets who wrote in alliterative lines in the North and therefore undoubtedly had heard such poems read by reciters who had kept up the true tradition of their scansion. We have here then the very best proof we can desire not only of the four-beat rhythm of the line, but also of the fact that unaccented words, although they may alliterate intentionally, as they do often in poems of the fifteenth century, or unintentionally, as earlier, do not get a full accent in consequence of the alliteration, as some scholars have thought, but remain unaccented.[109] As to the quality of the alliteration the same laws on the whole still prevail as in Old English poetry, but are less strictly observed. Thus frequently voiced and unvoiced sounds alliterate together, and the aspiration is neglected; f alliterates with v, v with w, w with wh, s with sh or with combinations of s and other consonants, g with k, h with ch:

On the other hand, sometimes (as e.g. in the Alisaunder fragments) greater strictness may be noticed in regard to alliteration of vowels, as only the same vowels[110] are allowed to alliterate:

Later on, in the fifteenth century, vocalic alliteration in general falls into disuse more and more.

§ 55. Comparison of Middle English and Old English alliterative verse. With regard to the rhythmic structure of the verse the Middle English alliterative line is not very different from the corresponding Old English metre. Two beats in each hemistich are, of course, the rule, and it has been shown by Dr. K. Luick, in a very valuable paper on the English alliterative line in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries,[111] that all the different types which Prof. Sievers has discovered for the two sections of the Old English alliterative line occur here again, but with certain modifications.

The modifications which the five chief types have undergone originated in the tendency to simplify their many varieties exactly in the same way as the Old English inflexional forms of the language were simplified and generalized in the Middle English period.

Only three of the five old types, viz. those with an even number of members (A, B, C), are preserved in the second section of the verse, and those not in their original forms. They show further a certain tendency to assimilate to each other.

In types B and C the variations with disyllabic anacrusis occurred most frequently, as was also the case in type A, and verses of this kind now become predominant. Furthermore, in the Old English alliterative line, endings consisting of an accented and an unaccented syllable (feminine endings) prevailed; and type B was the only one of the symmetrical types ending with an accented syllable. In Middle English the use of feminine endings goes so far that the original type B has disappeared altogether and given place to a new type with an unaccented last syllable corresponding to the form ××–́×–́×.

Prof. Luick very properly calls this type BC, holding that it originated from the variations ××–́×⏑́͜× and ××⏑́͜×–́× of the old types B and C in consequence of the lengthening of the originally short accented syllable. Verse-ends with two unaccented syllables, which might have arisen in the same way from –́× = ⏑́͜××, did not become popular; and verse-ends with one unaccented syllable predominated. Lastly, an important feature of the later verse-technique deserves notice, that a monosyllabic anacrusis (an initial unaccented syllable) is generally allowed in types where it was not permitted in the Old English alliterative line. The consequence of these changes is that the rhythm of the verse which was in Old English a descending rhythm, becomes in Middle English ascending, and is brought into line with the rhythm of the contemporary even-beat metres.

This is the state of development presented by the Middle English alliterative line in one of the earliest poems of this group, viz. in the fragments of King Alisaunder, the versification of which, as a rule, is very correct.

Here the three types only which we have mentioned occur in the second hemistich.

Type A is most common, corresponding to the formula (×)–́××–́×:

lórdes and óoþer 1, déedes of ármes 5, kíd in his tíme 11, térme of his lífe 16,

or with anacrusis:

or stérne was hólden 10, and sóne beráfter 25.

More than two unaccented syllables may occur after the first accented syllable. These two peculiarities seldom occur together in one and the same second hemistich (though frequently in the first hemistich); but there are some examples:

is túrned too him álse 165, and príkeden abóute 382, hee fáred òn in háste 79;

in this last example with a secondary accent on the word òn as also in the verse: þe méssengères þei cámme 1126.

Type C, (×)××–́–́×:

was þe mán hóten 13, þat his kíth ásketh 65, as a kíng shólde 17, withoute míscháunce 1179.

Type BC, (×)××–́×–́×:

or it týme wére 30, in his fáders life 46, of þis méry tále 45, þat þei no cómme þáre 507.

The same types occur in the first hemistich; but type C disappears almost entirely, and in the other two the last syllable not unfrequently is accented, especially if a considerable number of unaccented syllables occur in the middle of the hemistich; such verses may be looked upon as remnants of types B and E:

þo was cróuned kíng 28, hee made a uéry uów 281, and wédded þat wíght 225, þe bérn couth þerbý 632, &c.

Type D also seems to occur sometimes:

móuth méete þertò 184, what déath drý[e] thou shàlt 1067.

Besides these types the first hemistich has, as in Old English times, some forms of its own. The succession of syllables –́××–́× (type A) is extended either by several unaccented syllables before the first accented one (polysyllabic anacrusis) or by the insertion of a secondary accent between the two main accented syllables, or after the second accented syllable, with a considerable number of medial unaccented syllables.

The examples under (a) show the tendency noticeable already in the first hemistich of the Old English alliterative line to admit anacrusis. The examples under (b) and (c) may be looked upon as extended forms of types E and D.

§ 56. Several poems of somewhat later date deviate more frequently from these types than the Alisaunder fragments, chiefly in the following points:

The end of the hemistich sometimes consists of an accented syllable instead of an unaccented one; the thesis is sometimes monosyllabic instead of polysyllabic, especially in A, or the anacrusis may be polysyllabic instead of monosyllabic. Secondary accents are introduced more frequently into the second hemistich also, but by poets whose technique is careful they are admitted only between the two accented syllables. Owing to these licences, and to the introduction of polysyllabic theses, the rhythm of the verse sometimes becomes very heavy.

Belonging to this group are William of Palerne, Joseph of Arimathie, both belonging to the middle of the fourteenth century, the three editions of William Langland’s Vision concerning Piers Plowman, of somewhat later date, and a few minor poems. The Romance of the Chevelere Assigne, written in the East Midland district, at the end of the fourteenth century, and the works of the Gawain-poet, viz. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Cleanness, Patience, and the Legend of St. Erkenwald (Horstmann, Altengl. Legenden, 1881, p. 265), form the transition to another group of poems belonging to the North of England, but differing somewhat from the preceding with regard to their metre.

The most important amongst these is Langland’s great work, but it is at the same time most unequal in respect to its versification. In many passages, especially in the beginning of the several Passus, as they are called, the flow of the verses is very regular; in other passages the theses are frequently of such great length, and the arsis stands out so indistinctly, that the rhythm of the verse can only be made out with difficulty. Some examples taken from the B-text (c. 1377) may serve to illustrate this:

Extended second hemistich (Type A):

Extended first hemistich (Type A):

Such verses obviously contain only two beats in each hemistich, although at the same time some of the syllables forming the thesis may have a somewhat stronger accent than others. For as a rule such extended verses are succeeded by a normal line, clearly bringing out again the general four-beat rhythm, as is the case with the line (A + A) following immediately upon the last-mentioned example:

Type A is in Piers Plowman the usual one, but the types C and BC frequently occur. In the following examples we have type C in the second hemistich:

in the first hemistich it occurs rarely:

Type B C is frequently to be met with in both hemistichs; e.g. in the first:

in the second:

Masculine endings, however (originating from the dropping of the final -e in the last words of the types A and C, as e.g. in and drédful of síght Prol. 16, cristened þe kýnge xv. 437, as þe kýng híght iii. 9), occur very rarely here. They are, on the other hand, characteristic forms in another group of alliterative poems.

§ 57. These belong to the North of England and the adjacent parts of the Midlands.

In these districts the final e had by this time become silent, or was in the course of becoming so. Thus many verses of West-Midland poems were shortened in the North by omitting the final -e, and then these forms were imitated there. Hence the middle of the line was much less modified than the end of it.

Types A, C, B C, therefore, occur not only in the ordinary forms with unaccented syllables at the end, but also, although more rarely, with accented ones, viz. corresponding to the schemes:

A₁, (×)–́××–́, C₁, (×)××–́–́, BC₁, (×)××–́×–́.

These forms of the hemistich first occur in the Destruction of Troy, a poem written in a West-Midland dialect very like to the Northern dialect, and in the North-English poems, Morte Arthure and The Wars of Alexander (E. E. T. S., Extra-Ser. 47). Examples of these types (taken from the first-mentioned poem) are: of type A₁ in the second hemistich, for lérning of ús 32, þat ónest were áy 48; with a polysyllabic thesis, and lympit of the sóthe 36; with a secondary accent,with cléne mèn of wít 790; without anacrusis,[112] lémond as góld 459, bléssid were Í 473; in the first hemistich, with disyllabic anacrusis, þat ben drépit with déth 9, þat with the Grékys was grét 40; without anacrusis, Býg y-noghe vnto béd 397, Trýed men þat were táken 258, &c.; examples for C₁ (only occurring in the second hemistich), þat he fóre with 44, into your lond hóme 611, ye have sáid well 1122, þat ho bórne wás 1388, of my córs hás 1865; examples for B C₁, in the second hemistich (of rare occurrence), when it destróyet wás 28, and to sórow bróght 1497, þere þe cítie wás 1534.

The same modification of types took place later in other parts of the Midlands, as appears from two works of the early sixteenth century, Scottish Field and Death and Life (Bishop Percy’s Folio MS., edited by Furnivall and Hales, i. 199 and iii. 49). The last North-English or rather Scottish poem, on the other hand, written in alliterative lines without rhyme, Dunbar’s well-known Satire, The twa mariit wemen and the wedo, has, apart from the normal types occurring in the North-English poems, many variants, chiefly in the first hemistich, which are characterized by lengthy unaccented parts both at the beginning of the line, before the second arsis, and after it; frequently too syllables forming the thesis have a secondary accent and even take part in the alliteration, as e.g. in the following examples:

Sometimes the second hemistich participates in this cumulation of alliterating words, which not unfrequently extends over several, even as many as six or seven consecutive lines:

This explains how King James VI came to formulate the metrical rule mentioned above (p. 89) from the misuse of alliteration by the last poets who used the alliterative line, or the alliterative rhyming line to be discussed in the next paragraph, which shares the same peculiarity.

B. The alliterative line combined with rhyme

§ 58. In spite of the great popularity which the regular alliterative line enjoyed down to the beginning of the Modern English period, numerous and important rivals had arisen in the meantime, viz. the many even-beat rhymed kinds of verse formed on foreign models; and these soon began to influence the alliterative line. The first mark of this influence was that end-rhyme and strophic formation was forced upon many alliterative poems. In a further stage the alliterative line was compelled to accommodate its free rhythm of four accents bit by bit to that of the even-beat metres, especially to the closely-related four-foot iambic line, and thus to transform itself into a more or less regular iambic-anapaestic metre. The alliterative line, on the other hand, exercised a counter influence on the newer forms of verse, inasmuch as alliteration, which was formerly peculiar to native versification, took possession in course of time to a considerable extent of the even-beat metres, especially of the four-foot iambic verse. But by this reciprocal influence of the two forms of verse the blending of the four-beat alliterative line with that of four equal measures and the ultimate predominance of the even-beat metres was brought about more easily and naturally.

Alliterative-rhymed lines, the connexion of which into stanzas or staves will be treated of in the second part of this work under the heading of the ‘Bob-wheel-stanza’, were used during the Middle English period alike in lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry.

§ 59. Lyrical stanzas. The earliest stanzas written in alliterative rhyming lines were lyrical.

We must distinguish between isometric and anisometric stanza forms. In the former the whole stanza consists of four-beat alliterative lines, commonly rhyming according to a very simple scheme (either a a a a or a b a b). In the latter four-beat long lines as a rule are combined with isolated lines of one measure only and with several of two measures to form the stanza. The two-beat verses frequently have a somewhat lengthened structure (to be discussed further on sections on the epic stanzas), in consequence of which many of them having theses with secondary accents can be read either as even-beat verses of three measures or as three-beat verses on the model of those in King Horn. The four-beat alliterative lines, on the other hand, are mostly of more regular structure, the distances between the first and second arsis not being so unequal and the theses as a rule being disyllabic. The anacrusis too in these verses admits of a somewhat free treatment. The difference, however, between the first and second hemistich is less conspicuous than it was in those forms of the Middle English alliterative line before mentioned. Alliteration, on the other hand, is abundantly used.

The main rhythmic character of the verse is again indicated here by the frequent occurrence of the types A and A₁. The types B C, B C₁, C, C₁, however, likewise occur pretty often, and the two last types present serious obstacles to the assumption that the lines of these poems were ever recited with an even beat. But how exactly these poems were recited or to what sort of musical accompaniment can hardly be definitely decided in the absence of external evidence.

The first verses of a West-Midland poem of the end of the thirteenth century (Wright’s Political Songs, p. 149) may serve as a specimen:

The second hemistichs in ll. 2 and 4 belong to type C. In other poems also, with lines of more regular rhythm (chiefly type A), this type may be met with now and then, e.g. in a poem published in Wright’s Specimens of Lyric Poetry, p. 25, especially in the second hemistich, e.g. haueþ þis mái mére, line 9, and þe gýlófre, line 40, þat þe bór béde, line 44.

It is not difficult to distinguish such rhymed four-beat alliterative lines from those of four measures which have fairly regular alliteration, for the long line of the native metre always has a somewhat looser fabric, not the even-beat rhythmic cadence peculiar to the iambic verse of four measures, and, secondly, it always has a caesura after the first hemistich, whereas the even-beat verse of four measures may either lack distinct caesura or the caesura may occur in other places in the verse as well as after the second arsis. This will be evident by comparing the following four-beat verses of the last stanza of a poem in Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 31:

with the following first four-beat alliterative lines of another poem (ibid. p. 25):

In similar lines are written several other poems, as Mon in þe mone (ibid. p. 110); Of ribaudz y ryme (Wright’s Pol. Songs, p. 237); and five songs by Laurence Minot (nos. ii, v, ix, x, xi), written in the middle of the fourteenth century.

§ 60. In other poems the four-beat long lines used in the main part of the stanza are followed by shorter lines forming the cauda, which in part are of a variable rhythmic cadence either of three beats (or three measures) or of two beats, as e.g. in the well-known poem in Percy’s Reliques, ii, p. 1.[113] The first stanza may be quoted here:

In the following stanzas of this poem the four-beat rhythm, although rarely marked by regular alliteration, is (in the main part or ‘frons’) still more distinctly recognizable, in spite of several rhythmically incorrect lines.

Second hemistichs of the type C₁ are not infrequent, e.g. opon swývýng 9, sire Édwárd 46, o þy lýárd 47. Lines 5 and 7 are of a two-beat rhythm, l. 8 probably as well (cf. our scansion).

There is a decided similarity in regard to structure and versification between this stanza and that of a poem in Wright’s Pol. Songs, p. 153, although the long lines are divided in the middle by interlaced rhyme. This may be illustrated by its second stanza:

There is no line here corresponding to l. 5 of the preceding poem. Otherwise, however, the cauda of this poem is of a similar structure to that of the preceding one, at least in this and possibly in the following stanzas, whereas the last line of the first stanza has a two-beat rhythm, and in the others the last lines probably are to be scanned with three beats. The second line of the cauda of the first stanza of this poem belongs to type C. Another poem (Wright’s Polit. Songs, p. 155; Böddeker, P.L. no. iv) shows a very artificial form of stanza, either corresponding to the formula a a₄ b₂ c c₄ b₂ d d₄ b₂ e e₄ b₂ f f g g g f₂ (if we look upon the verses as four-beat and two-beat lines, which the poet probably intended), or corresponding to the formula a a₄ b₃ c c₄ b₃ d d₄ b₃ e e₄ b₃ f f g g g f₂ (if we look upon the frons as consisting of ordinary tail-rhyme-stanza lines of four and three even-beat measures).

The four- and two-beat cadence of the verses comes out still more clearly in the stanzas of another poem (Wright’s Pol. Songs, p. 187; Ritson, Anc. Songs, i. 51; Böddeker, P.L. no. v), the rhymes of which follow the scheme a a a₄ b₂ c c c₄ b₂ (extended tail-rhyme-stanzas). Some of its long lines, it is true, admit of being read as even-beat verses of three measures, e.g. and béo huere chéuentéyn 20, and móni anóþer swéyn 24, but the true scansion in all probability is and béo huere chéuenteȳ̀n (or chèuentéyn): ant móni anòþer swéyn, in conformity with the scansion of the following lines to cóme to parís: þourh þe flóur de lís 52–6, or wiþ éorl and wiþ knýht: with húem forte fýht 124–8.

As a first step to the epic forms of stanza to be considered in the next paragraph a poem of the early fourteenth century (Wright’s Pol. Songs, p. 212; Ritson, Anc. Songs, p. 28; Böddeker, P.L. no. vi) may be quoted:

The fifth line has one arsis only (as appears more clearly from that in the second stanza: wiþ Lóue), thus corresponding to the above-mentioned poems (pp. 99, 100); the other lines of the cauda have two stresses.

Prof. Luick[114] looks upon the long lines of this poem and of several others (e.g. Wright’s Pol. Songs, pp. 69 and 187) as doubled native verses of the progressive or Layamon form, but rhyming only as long lines. This can hardly be, as the rhythmic structure of these verses does not differ from that of the other poems quoted above, which belong, according to Prof. Luick himself, to the class of the normal, lyric rhyming-alliterative lines.

§ 61. Narrative verse. Alliterative-rhyming verses occur in their purest form in narrative poetry, especially in a number of poems composed during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in stanzas of thirteen lines, and republished recently in a collective edition by the Scottish Text Society in vol. 27 under the title Scottish Alliterative Poems (ed. by F.J. Amours, Edinburgh, 1892). The poems contained in this collection are Golagras and Gawane (also in Anglia, ii. 395), The Book of the Howlat by Holland, Rauf Coilȝear (also in E. E. T. S., Extr.-Ser. vol. xxxix), The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne, The Pistill of Susan (also in Anglia, i. 93). Douglas’s Prologue to the Eighth Book of his translation of the Aeneid (although written in the beginning of the sixteenth century) likewise belongs to this group, as do also the poems of John Audelay, composed in Shropshire in the fifteenth century (Percy Soc. xiv, p. 10 ff.), and a poem Of Sayne John the Euaungelist (E. E. T. S. 26, p. 87) written in stanzas of fourteen lines in the North of England. The stanzas of all these poems—generally speaking—consist of two unequal parts, the frons written in alliterative lines, rhyming according to the formula a b a b a b a b, and the cauda which contains five or six lines, the first of which may either be a long line as in the frons, or, as in The Pistill of Susan, a short one-beat one, with four two-beat sectional verses following. Only in the last-mentioned poem does the cauda consist of six two-beat sectional verses.

The rhythm of this alliterative-rhyming metre may first be illustrated by the opening lines of Golagras and Gawane:

I.

II.

Lines like the four last quoted illustrate the normal structure of the rhyming-alliterative verse, especially the relationship of rhyme and alliteration to each other in monosyllabic and disyllabic words. It will be seen that the rhyming syllable, as a rule the root-syllable, or at least the accented syllable of the word, at the same time carries the fourth accent of the line, and in consequence the fourth alliterative sound. In all other respects the rhymed-alliterative verse is structurally similar to that without rhyme, and it is therefore evident that rhyme exercises no decisive influence on the rhythm of the verse. In this comparatively pure form—if we do not take into account the secondary accents occurring in the first hemistichs of the stanza in the later poem—are written the great majority of the lines in the earliest of poems mentioned above, viz. The Awntyrs off Arthure.

§ 62. The relation, however, between rhyme and alliteration and consequently the relation of the rhythmic accentuation of the words to their natural accentuation is less clear in the first stanza quoted above. The following verses rhyming together may serve to elucidate this:

or the verses Gol. 648, 650, 654:

In the first couplet the last syllable of the word gráciùs, although bearing only a secondary accent and forming the last thesis of the verse, rhymes with the last syllable of the word chéuailrús, which likewise in ordinary speech has a secondary accent, but here is the bearer of the fourth metrical accent of the verse. In the second couplet the syllable lyng of the word wéderlỳng, which has a secondary accent and forms part of the thesis, rhymes with the word hyng which has the rhythmical accent. In the last group of verses the last syllable of the words paramour, honour having secondary accents rhymes with the word hour, the bearer of the last rhythmical accent. Similar rhymes occur even in Modern English poetry, e.g. in the works of Thomas Moore: Váin were its mélodỳ, Róse, without thée or Whát would the Róse bè Únsung by thée?[115]

It also frequently happens that all the rhyming syllables, which have a secondary accent and occur in the thesis of a verse, belong to trisyllabic words, while the accented syllables in the arsis, whether alliterating or not, do not take part in the rhyme, e.g.:

Similar unaccented rhymes are also met with in disyllabic words:

Other rhymes of the same kind are sémbland: léuand, conséntand : endúrand, Gol. 428 ff., &c.

In all such cases the natural accentuation of the words is not interfered with by the rhythm of the verse.

The kind of irregular rhyme most frequently occurring, however, is that which is formed by the unaccented syllable of a disyllabic word (the first syllable of which alliterates and bears the last arsis of the verse) rhyming with a monosyllabic word which likewise bears the fourth rhythmical accent of another alliterative line (or the second of a short line forming part of the cauda) and takes part in the alliteration as well, as e.g. in the rhymes Túskane: sane: Brítane: gane and súmmovne: rénovne: crovne of the above-mentioned stanza of the poem Golagras and Gawane.

It is not likely that a complete shifting of accent in favour of the rhyming syllable ever took place, as the first syllables of the words usually take part in the alliteration, and therefore have a strongly marked accent. Sometimes, it is true, in the poems of this epoch, unaccented syllables do participate in the alliteration, and in the case of the words Tuskane, Britane, summovne, renovne their Romance origin would explain the accent on the last syllable; but these words, both as to their position and as to their treatment in the line, are exactly on a par with the Germanic rhyme-words in ll. 870–2:

In both cases we thus have ‘accented-unaccented rhymes’ (cf. Chapter I in Book II), which probably were uttered in oral recitation with a certain level stress. This is probable for several reasons. First it is to be borne in mind that Germanic words in even-beat rhythms of earlier and contemporary poems were used in the same way, e.g.:

Only in these cases the rhythmical accent supersedes the word accent which has to accommodate itself to the former, while in the uneven-beat rhythm of the four-beat alliterative line the word-accent still predominates. In the even-beat lines, therefore, the rhythmical accent rests on the last syllable of a disyllabic rhyme-word, but in the alliterative lines it rests on the penultimate. In the case of words of Romance origin, however, which during this period of the language could be used either with Germanic or with Romanic accentuation, the displacement of the word-accent by the rhythmic accent in non-alliterative words may in these cases have been somewhat more extensive; cf. e.g. rhymes like rage: curáge: suáge Gol. 826–8; day : gay: journáy ib. 787–9; assáill: mettáill: battáil R. Coilȝear, 826–8, &c. (but ȝone bérne in the báttale Gol. 806).

As a rule, however, for these too the same level-stress accentuation must be assumed as for the rhyme-words of the first stanza of Golagras quoted above (p. 102)

§ 63. This is all the more probable because, in these alliterative-rhyming poems, there are many sectional verses corresponding to the old types C and C₁, these answering best the combined requirements of alliteration and of end-rhyme, for which frequently one and the same Germanic or Romanic word had to suffice in the second hemistich, as e.g. in the following sectional verses rhyming together:—What is þi góod réde: for his kníȝthéde: (by crósse and by créde) Awnt. of Arth. 93–7; (and bláke to þe bóne): as a wómáne ib. 105–7; enclósed with a crowne: of the trésóne ib. 287–91; of ane fáir wéll: téirfull to téll: with ane cástéll : kéne and crúèll, or, as Prof. Luick scans, kéne and cruéll (but l. 92 crúel and kéne) Gol. 40–6; at the mýddáy: (wént thai thar wáy) Howl. 665–7. &c.

Also in the even-beat metres the influence of this type is still perceptible; cf. rhymes like

which are of frequent occurrence.

For the rest both in these alliterative-rhyming poems and in the poems with alliteration only the types A and A₁, B C and B C₁ are frequent. These alliterative-rhyming lines have this feature in common with the pure alliterative lines, that the first hemistich differs materially from the second in having often an anacrusis of several syllables (initial theses) and somewhat lengthened theses in the middle of the line, and in permitting such theses with only a secondary accent to take part in the alliteration. All this tends to give a somewhat heavy rhythmic cadence to the whole line.

§ 64. The same difference is perceptible, as Prof. Luick was the first to show (Anglia, xii, pp. 438 ff.), in the single two-beat lines of the cauda, the three first (ll. 10–12 of the whole stanza) having the looser structure of the extended first hemistichs of the long lines, while the last two-beat line (line 13 of the whole stanza) has the normal structure (commonly type A, A₁, as e.g. Birnand thrétty and thré Gol. 247; Of góld that wes cléir ib. 1) of second sections of the long line, as is evident from the first stanza of Golagras and Gawane quoted above (p. 102). In this concluding line, however, other types of verse peculiar to the second hemistich of long lines may also be met with, as e.g. C, C₁, BC, BC₁, e.g.: For thi mánhéde Awnt. of Arth. 350; Withoutin dístánce Gol. 1362; As I am tréw kníght Gol. 169; Couth na léid sáy ib. 920; In ony ríche réime ib. 1258, Quhen he wes líghtit dóun ib. 130.

In other poems the group of short lines rhyming according to the scheme a a a b and forming part of the cauda is preceded neither by a long alliterative line nor by a one-beat half section of it (as in Susan), but by a complete two-beat sectional verse, which then, in the same way as the last verse rhyming with it, corresponds in its structure to that of the second hemistich of the long line; as e.g. in The Tournament of Tottenham (Ritson’s Ancient Songs, i. 85–94), rhyming on the scheme A A A A b c c c b (the capitals signifying the long lines), and in The Ballad of Kynd Kittok, possibly by W. Dunbar (Laing, ii. 35, 36; Small, i. 52, 53; Schipper, 70).

In Sayne John the Euaungelist the ‘cauda’ has the structure of a complete tail-rhyme-stanza, the order of rhymes of the whole stanza being A B A B A B A B c c d c c d

§ 65. In connexion with this it is particularly interesting to note that such two-beat sections of the alliterative line are also used by themselves for whole poems written in tail-rhyme-stanzas (as was first shown by Prof. Luick, Anglia, xii, pp. 440 ff.); cf. e.g. the translation of the Disticha Catonis (E.E.T.S. 68), the two first stanzas of which may be quoted here:

In the same stanza The Feest (Hazlitt, Remains, iii. 93) is written.

Still more frequently such lines were used for extended tail-rhyme-stanzas rhyming on the scheme a a a b c c c b d d d b e e e b, as e.g. in a poem, The Enemies of Mankind, of the beginning of the fourteenth century, published by Kölbing (Engl. Studien, ix. 440 ff.).

The first stanza runs as follows:

Here, again, the difference between the lines on the pattern of the first hemistich of the long line, which form the body of the stanza (a a a, b b b, c c c, d d d), and those on the pattern of the second hemistich used as tail-rhyme lines (b, b, b, b) is plainly recognizable.

The same is the case in other poems written in this form of stanza, as e.g. in the Metrical Romances, Sir Perceval, Sir Degrevant (Halliwell, Thornton Romances, Camden Society, 1844, pp. 1, 177) and others; cf. Luick, Anglia, xii, pp. 440ff., and Paul’s Grundriss, ii a, p. 1016. But in these later works, one of the latest of which probably is the poem The Droichis Part of the Play, possibly by Dunbar (Laing, ii. 37; Small, ii. 314; Schipper, 190), the two-beat lines are frequently intermingled and blended with even-beat lines, which from the beginning of the fifth stanza onward completely take the place of the two-beat lines in the last-mentioned poem. Likewise in the ‘Bob-wheel-staves’, i.e. stanzas of the structure of those sixteenth-century stanzas quoted above (§§ 60, 61), the cauda, as is expressly stated by King James VI in his Revlis and Cavtelis, is written in even-beat lines of four and three measures, though the main part of the stanza (the frons) is composed in four-beat rhyming-alliterative lines (cf. Luick, Anglia, xii, P. 444)

§ 66. In the contemporary Dramatic Poetry this mixture of four-beat (or two-beat) alliterative lines with lines of even measures is still more frequent, and may be used either strophically or otherwise.

In the first place, we must note that in the earlier collections of Mystery Plays (Towneley Mysteries, York Plays, and Ludus Coventriae) the rhyming alliterative long line, popular, as we have seen, in lyric and in narrative poetry, is also used in the same or cognate forms of stanzas.

But the form of verse in these Mysteries, owing to the loss of regular alliteration, cannot with propriety be described as the four-beat alliterative long line, but only as the four-beat long line. In many instances, however, the remnants of alliteration decidedly point to the four-beat character of this rhythm, as e.g. in the following stanza of the Towneley Mysteries (p. 140):

In this form of stanza the different groups of lines or even single lines are frequently, as e.g. in the so-called Processus Noe (the Play of the Flood), very skilfully divided between several persons taking part in the dialogue. The interlaced rhyme in the long lines connects it with the stanza form of the lyric poem quoted above (p. 100), and the form of the ‘cauda’ relates it to that of the lyric poem quoted (p. 101), and in this respect is identical with that of The Pistill of Susan.

The rhythmic treatment of the verses is, both with regard to the relation between rhyme and the remnants of alliteration and to the use of the Middle English types of verse, on the whole the same as was described in §§ 62–4 treating of this form of verse in narrative poetry. The types A and A₁, B C and B C₁, are chiefly met with; now and then, however, type C₁ also occurs in the second hemistich, as e.g. in the verses that wold vówch sáyf 172, of the tént máyne 487, wille com agáne sóne 488, of the Play of the Flood mentioned above.

But in the ‘cauda’ the difference explained in § 65 between first and second short lines forming the close of a stanza is often very regularly observed.

In other places of the Towneley Mysteries similar stanzas are written in lines which have almost an alexandrine rhythm (cf. Metrik, i. 229), while, on the other hand, in the Coventry Mysteries we not unfrequently meet with stanzas of the same form written in lines which, in consequence of their concise structure, approach even-beat lines of four measures, or directly pass into this metre. The intermixture of different kinds of line is even carried here to such a length that to a frons of four-beat lines is joined a cauda of even-beat lines of four or three measures corresponding to King James VI’s rule quoted above (p. 108) for such stanzas; and on the other hand to a frons of even-beat lines of four measures is joined a cauda of two-beat short lines.

§ 67. The distinctly four-beat line, however, still forms the staple of the different kinds of verse occurring in these poems, and was also used in them for simple forms of stanza. In the further development of dramatic poetry it remained much in use. Skelton’s Moral Play Magnificence, and most of the Moralities and Interludes contained in Dodsley’s Old Plays (ed. Hazlitt), vols. i-iv, are written chiefly in this popular metre. As a rule it rhymes here in couplets, and under the influence of the even-beat measures used in the same dramatic pieces it gradually assumes a pretty regular iambic-anapaestic or trochaic-dactylic rhythm. This applies for the most part to the humorous and popular parts; allegorical and historical personages are made to converse in even-beat verses.

Verses of an ascending (iambic-anapaestic) rhythm were especially favoured, as might be expected from the fact that the Middle English alliterative line in the preceding centuries usually begins with one or two unaccented syllables before the first accented one.

Of the different types used in the Middle English alliterative line type C (C1), which does not harmonize well with the even-beat tendency of the rhythm, and which is only very seldom if at all to be met with even in the Coventry Plays, becomes very rare and tends to disappear altogether, type A (A1) and (although these are much less frequent) type B C (B C1) alone remaining in use.

§ 68. Of the more easily accessible pieces of Bishop John Bale (1495–1563) his Comedye Concernynge Thre Lawes, edited by A. Schröer (Anglia, v, pp. 137 ff., also separately, Halle, Niemeyer, 1882) is written in two-beat short lines and four-beat long lines, and his King Johan (c. 1548) (edited by Collier, Camden Society, 1838) entirely in this latter metre. The latter play has a peculiar interest of its own, containing as it does lines which, as in two Old English poems (cf. pp. 123, 124), consist either half or entirely of Latin words. Now, as the accentuation of the Latin lines or half-lines admits of no uncertainty, the four-beat scansion of the English verses of this play and of the long lines in The Three Lawes is put beyond doubt, though Schröer considers the latter as eight-beat long lines on the basis of the four-beat theory of the short line.

Some specimens may serve to illustrate the nature of these ‘macaronic’ verses, e.g.:

Other verses of the same kind occur, pp. 5, 6, 53, 62, 78, 92.

But apart from this irrefutable proof of the four-beat scansion of the long line, the rhythmic congruity of it with the rhyming alliterative lines discussed in § 67 can easily be demonstrated by the reoccurrence of the same types, although a difference between the first and the second hemistich no longer seems to exist.

Type A, of course, is the most frequent, and occurs in many sub-types, which are distinguished chiefly by monosyllabic, disyllabic, or polysyllabic anacruses, disyllabic or polysyllabic theses between the first and second arsis, and monosyllabic, disyllabic, or trisyllabic theses after the latter. The most usual form of this type corresponds to the scheme (×)×–́××–́×, while the form –́××–́× is rarer. Type A₁ likewise admits of polysyllabic anacruses and theses, corresponding mostly to the formula (×)×–́××–́, less frequently to –́××–́. Type B C (×)××–́×–́× is rare, type B C₁ (×)××–́×–́, on the other hand, very common; type C (×)××–́–́× still occurs now and then, but type C₁ (×)××–́–́ has become exceedingly scarce.

§ 69. Statistical investigations as to the frequency of occurrence, and especially on the grouping of these different types are still wanting, and would contribute greatly toward the more exact knowledge of the development of the iambic-anapaestic and the trochaic-dactylic metre out of the four-beat verse. Of course in such an investigation the use of anacrusis in the types A and A₁ should not be neglected. According to the presence or absence of anacrusis in the two hemistichs four different kinds of line may be distinguished:

1. Lines with anacrusis in both hemistichs. These are the most numerous of all, and are chiefly represented by the combinations of types A(A₁) + A(A₁), A(A₁) + B C₁(B C):

2. Lines with anacrusis in the first section and without it in the second. These are almost exclusively represented by the combination A(A₁) + A(A₁); rarely by B C₁(B C) + A(A₁):

3. Lines without anacrusis in the first section and with anacrusis in the second; likewise chiefly represented by the types A (A1) + A (A1), rarely by A (A₁) + B C (B C₁):

4. Lines without anacrusis in either section, so that they are wholly dactylic in rhythm, only represented by A (A₁) + A₁ (A):

The numerical preponderance of types A + A₁ is at once perceptible, and usually these two types of hemistichs are combined in this order to form a long line.

The result is that in the course of time whole passages made up of lines of the same rhythmical structure (A + A₁) are common in the dramatic poetry of this period, as e.g. in the Prologue to Gammer Gurton’s Needle:

Possibly this preference of the type A₁ in the second half line may go back to the influence of the difference between the rhythmical structure of the first and the second hemistich of the alliterative line in early Middle English poetry.

§ 70. This view derives additional probability from the manner in which lines rhythmically identical with the alliterative hemistich are combined into certain forms of stanza which are used in the above-mentioned dramatic poems, especially in Bale’s Three Lawes.

For in this play those halves of tail-rhyme stanzas, which form the ‘wheels’ of the alliterative-rhyming stanzas previously described (§§ 61 and 66) as used in narrative poetry and in the mysteries, are completed so as to form entire tail-rhyme stanzas (of six or eight lines) similar to those mentioned in § 65. This will be evident from the following examples:

The difference in rhythm which we have previously pointed out between the lines of the body of the stanza (corresponding to first halves of the alliterative line) and those of the tail (corresponding to second halves) may again be observed in most of the stanzas of this play, although not in all of them.

In other passages the sequence of rhymes is less regular; e.g. in ll. 190–209, which rhyme according to the formulas a a a b c c b, d d b e e b, e e e f g g f

§ 71. Lastly, we must mention another kind of verse or stave originating in the resolution of the four-beat alliterative line into two sections, and their combination so as to form irregular tail-rhyme stanzas, viz. the so-called Skeltonic verse. This kind of verse, however, was not invented (as is erroneously stated in several Histories of English Literature) by Skelton, but existed before him, as is evident from the preceding remarks. The name came to be given to the metre from the fact that Skelton, poet laureate of King Henry VII, was fond of this metre, and used it for several popular poems.

In Skelton’s metre the strict form of the alliterative four-beat line has arrived at the same stage of development which the freer form had reached about three hundred years earlier in Layamon’s Brut, and afterwards in King Horn. That is to say, in Skelton’s metre the long line is broken up by sectional rhyme into two short ones. The first specimens of this verse which occur in the Towneley Mysteries, in the Chester Plays, and in some of the Moralities, e.g. in The World and the Child (Dodsl. i), resemble Layamon’s verse in so far as long lines (without sectional rhymes) and short rhyming half-lines occur in one and the same passage. On the other hand, they differ from it and approach nearer to the strophic form of the alliterative line (as occurring in the Miracle Plays) in that the short lines do not rhyme in couplets, but in a different and varied order of rhyme, mostly a b a b; cf. the following passage (l. c., p. 247):

In Skelton’s Magnificence the short lines rhyme in couplets like those of King Horn, in a passage taken from p. 257 (part of which may be quoted here):

In other poems Skelton uses short lines of two beats, but rhyming in a varied order under the influence, it would seem, of the strophic system of the virelay, which rhymes in the order a a a b b b b c c c c d. But the succession of rhymes is more irregular in the Skeltonic metre, as e. g. in the passage:

In other cases short bob-lines of one beat only interchange with two-beat rhythms, as e.g. in Skelton’s poem Caudatos Anglos (i. 193):

The mingling of Latin and English lines, as in this passage, is one of the characteristic features of the Skeltonic verse.

In some passages, as e.g. in the humorous poems Phyllyp Sparowe and Elinour Rummyng, the three-beat rhythm seems to prevail. In such cases it probably developed out of the two-beat rhythm in the same way as in King Horn.

Skelton’s verse was chiefly used by poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for satirical and burlesque poetry. One of its chief cultivators was John Taylor, the Water-poet. A list of Skeltonic poems is given in Dyce’s edition of Skelton’s poems, i. introduction, pp. cxxviii-cxxix.

C. Revival of the old four-beat alliterative verse in the Modern English period.

§ 72. If after what precedes any doubt were possible as to the scansion of the verses quoted on p. 113 from the Prologue to the Early Modern English comedy of Gammer Gurton’s Needle, this doubt would be removed at once by the following couplet and by the accents put over the second line of it by the sixteenth-century metrician, George Gascoigne[116]:

For the rhythm of these lines is perfectly identical with that of the lines of the above-mentioned prologue, and also with that of the alliterative line quoted ten years later (A. D. 1585), and called tumbling-verse by King James VI in his Revlis and Cavtelis, viz.:

This is the very same rhythm in which a good many songs and ballads of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are written, as e.g. the well-known ballad of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury, which begins with the following stanzas[117]:

This four-beat rhythm, which (as is proved by the definition King James VI gives of it) is the direct descendant of the old alliterative line, has continued in use in modern English poetry to the present day.

It occurs in the poem The recured Lover, by Sir Thomas Wyatt, one of the earliest Modern English poets, where it is intermixed sometimes with four-feet rhythms, as was the case also in several Early English poems. The general rhythm, however, is clearly of an iambic-anapaestic nature. Fifteen years after the death of Wyatt Thomas Tusser wrote part of his didactic poem A hundred good points of Husbandry in the same metre. In Tusser’s hands the metre is very regular, the first foot generally being an iambus and the following feet anapaests:

The four beats of the rhythm and the regular occurrence of the caesura are as marked characteristics of these verses as of the earlier specimens of the metre.

Spenser has written several eclogues of his Shepheard’s Calendar in this metre (February, May, September), and Shakespeare uses it in some lyric pieces of his King Henry IV, Part II, but also for dialogues, as e.g. Err. III. i. 11–84. In more modern times Matthew Prior (1664–1715) wrote a ballad Down Hall to the tune, as he says, of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury, which clearly shows that he meant to imitate the ancient popular four-beat rhythm, which he did with perfect success. In other poems he used it for stanzas rhyming in the order a b a b. Swift has used the same metre, and it became very popular in Scottish poetry through Allan Ramsay and Robert Burns, one of whose most famous poems is written in it, viz.:

Sir Walter Scott used it frequently for drinking-songs, and Thomas Moore wrote his Letters of the Fudge Family in it.

By Coleridge and Byron this metre was used in the same way as by Wyatt, viz. intermixed with regular four-foot verse according to the subject, the four-beat iambic-anapaestic rhythm for livelier passages, the pure iambic for passages of narration and reflecti—. Byron’s Prisoner of Chillon and his Siege of Corinth are good specimens of this kind of metre.[118] On the other hand the regular four-foot rhythm, as will be shown below, if it is of a looser structure, develops into a kind of verse similar to the iambic-anapaestic rhythm—an additional reason for their existing side by side often in one poem.

A few variations of this metre remain to be mentioned, which occur as early as Tusser. The first variety arises from interlaced rhyme, by which the two four-beat verses are broken up into four two-beat verses rhyming in the order a b a b.

On the model of these stanzas others were afterwards formed by Tusser consisting of three-beat verses of the same rhythm. The same verse was used for eight-line stanzas rhyming a b a b c d c d by Nicholas Rowe, Shenstone, Cowper, and in later times by Thackeray in one of his burlesque poems (Malony’s Lament in Ballads, the Rose and the Ring, &c., p. 225). For examples of these variations see the sections treating of the iambic-anapaestic verses of three and two measures.

§ 73. In modern times a few attempts have been made to revive the old four-beat alliterative line without rhyme, but also without a regular use of alliteration. These attempts, however, have never become popular.

The following passage from William Morris’s dramatic poem Love is enough may give an idea of the structure of this kind of verse:

The rhythm, together with the irregular use of alliteration, places these four-beat alliterative lines on the same level with those of the dramatic poems of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The same kind of versification is found in Longfellow’s translation of the late Old English poem on The Grave, and in James M. Garnett’s translations of Beowulf and Cynewulf’s Elene. On the other hand, George Stephens, in his translation of the Old English poem on The Phoenix, published 1844, not only adheres strictly to the laws of alliteration, but confines himself to Germanic words, sometimes even using inflexional forms peculiar to Middle English.

§ 74. We shall conclude this survey of the development of the four-beat alliterative line by giving a series of examples in reversed chronological order, beginning with writers of the present day and ending with the earliest remains of Old English poetry, in order to illustrate the identity in rhythmic structure of this metre in all periods of its history.

Nineteenth Century, End:

Nineteenth Century, Beginning:

Eighteenth Century, End:

Eighteenth Century, Middle:

Eighteenth Century, Beginning (1715):

Seventeenth Century, Beginning (or Sixteenth Century, End):

Sixteenth Century, End (1585):

Sixteenth Century (1575):

Sixteenth Century (before 1575):

Sixteenth Century, Middle (about 1548):

Sixteenth Century, Beginning:

Fifteenth Century, Second Half: