Historical Manual of English Prosody. Saintsbury George

Historical Manual of English Prosody

wass | full cwem|e.

The moral of this (whether it be written as above in eights and sevens or continuously as "fifteeners") is unmistakable, as stated before: the writer, for all his scrupulous indication of short vowels, seems to care no more than if he were a modern Frenchman for syllabic quantity, or even for accent. He will have his fifteen syllables, his pause at the eighth, and his sing-song run of seven dissyllabic batches and a feminine ending. But, will he nill he, he impresses—with whatever sing-song effect and whatever merciless iteration—the iambic beat throughout his whole enormous work.

V. Early Middle English Period
Conflict or Indecision between Accentual Rhythm and Metrical Scheme. Layamon.

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1. {Þa an|swære|de Vor|tiger—

{of ælc | an vu|ele he | wes wær.

2. {Nulle ¦ ich heom ¦ belauen ||

{bi mine ¦ quike live.

3. {For Hen|gest is | hider | icumen,

{He is | mi fa|der and ich | his sune.

4. {And ich ¦ habbe ¦ to leof-monne ||

{his dohter ¦ Rowenne.

These four couplets (continuous in the original) exhibit perfectly the process which was going on. (2) is a rather shapeless example of the old scarcely metrical Anglo-Saxon line with a roughly trochaic rhythm; and (4) is not very different. But (3) is a not quite successful, though recognisable, attempt at a rhymed (it is actually assonanced) iambic dimeter or octosyllabic couplet. And (1) is this couplet complete at all points in rhythm, metre, and rhyme—capable, in fact, of being exactly quantified and rendered exactly into modern English, all but the dropped final e:

Thĕn ān|swĕrēd|[ĕ] Vōr|tĭger

ŏf īlk | ăn ē|vĭl hē | wăs wāre.

VI. Early Middle English Period
The Appearance and Development of the "Fourteener."

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The exact origin[31] of the "fourteener," "septenar" (as the Germans call it), "long Alexandrine" (as it was very improperly termed in England for a time), "seven-foot" or "seven-accent" line—to give its various designations—is a matter of conjecture. The "fifteener" of Orm with the redundant syllable lopped off; a variation with iambic or "rising stress" rhythm substituted for trochaic or falling, and a syllable added in the popular Latin metre of

Meum est propositum in taberna mori;

with other things; most probably of all, a shortened metrification of the old long line, to represent the frequent inequality of its halves better than the octosyllabic couplet—have been suggested. It holds, however, such an important place in English prosody from the early thirteenth to the late sixteenth century, and its resolution into the ballad couplet or "common measure" is of so much greater importance still, that it can hardly have too much attention.

The extraordinarily prosaic and "stumping" cadence of the Ormulum perhaps obscures the connection, especially as this rigid syllabisation makes trisyllabic feet impossible. But the true rhythm appears, though still with a redundant syllable, in the famous Moral Ode, the older versions of which are dated before Orm. The oldest, as it is supposed to be, of these shows the form in full existence—

But the youngest—

gives a priceless improvement; for even if "nu" has dropped out, the resulting monosyllabic foot is quite rhythmical, the trisyllabic "-ter and eke" is unmistakable, and the life and spirit that it gives to the verse equally so.

In the course of the thirteenth century the form develops immensely. As a continuous one, it furnishes the staple of the Chronicle and Saints' Lives, attributed—the former certainly and the latter probably in at least some cases—to Robert of Gloucester. As thus in Lear's complaint:

Mid yox|ing and | mid gret | wop || þas | began | ys mone

Þat | þus | clene | me bryngst | adoun || wyder | schal I | be broȝht?

For more | sorwe | yt doþ | me when || it co|meth in | my thoȝht.

… . …

Le|ve doȝ|ter Cor|deille, || to sþo|e þou seid|est me

But before long it shows, though it may be still written on, an evident tendency to break up into ballad measure, as in the (also thirteenth-century) Judas poem:

Hit wes upon a scere-Thursday

That ure Laverd aros,

Ful milde were the wordes

He spec to Judas:

"Judas, thou most to Jursalem

Oure mete for to bugge,

Thritti platen of selver

Thou bere upo thi rugge.

VII. Early Middle English Period
The Plain and Equivalenced Octosyllable.

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We have seen how, in Layamon, the regular rhymed octosyllabic couplet or iambic dimeter ("four-stress line," etc.) shows itself, either as a deliberate alternative to the old long line, or as a half-unconscious result of the endeavour to adjust it to the new metrical tendencies of the language. And we saw, also, that its examples in Layamon himself vary from absolute normality to different stages of licence or incompleteness. Before long, however, we find two varieties establishing themselves, with more or less distinct and definite contrast. The first, which seems to keep French or Latin examples more or less strictly before it, is exemplified in The Owl and the Nightingale, and scans as follows:

Wi nul|tu singe | an oth|er theode,

War hit | is much|ele mo|re neode?

Thu nea|ver ne | singst in | Irlonde,

Ne thu | ne cumest | nogt in | Scotlonde:

Here, it will be observed, there is practically no licence except a few doubtful e's, and that of omitting one syllable and making the line "acephalous" iambic or catalectic trochaic. This form was followed largely, and, from Chaucer and Gower onwards, by most poets, except Spenser, till the time of Chatterton, Blake, and Coleridge in Christabel.

Side by side with it, however, a form embodying the special characteristic of the new English prosody— equivalent substitution—exhibits itself in full force in the mid-thirteenth-century Genesis and Exodus, as well as in other miscellaneous poems and in the romances. Here are specimens from Genesis and Exodus, 2367–2376:

Josep | gaf ilc | here twin|ne srud,

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Historical Manual of English Prosody. Saintsbury George