A Book of Middle English. J. A. Burrow
where the inversion of the first foot gives dramatic emphasis at this crucial point in the tale (see the note there). Inversion within the line is rarer still, but it can, for example, convey the speech‐rhythm of a colloquial phrase in téll and sei hów (13/20).
The same four‐stress verse‐form is used some two centuries earlier for The Owl and the Nightingale. Perhaps because of the stronger influence of the native line upon the early poet, there is much greater freedom in rhythmic patterns than Gower permits, but even so, greater freedom does not generally mean less control. A straightforwardly regular line is:
þarmíd þu cláckes óft and lónge (2/81)
Final ‐e needs to be sounded in:
And áfter þáre lónge tále (2/140)
but within the line ‐e is elided in:
Ich hábbe on bréde and ék on léngþe (2/174)
There is striking inversion of the first foot in:
Wái þat he nís þaróf biréved (2/120)
and shifting of stress within the line brings to prominence the alliteration and rhyme of a colloquial phrase:
Wel fíʒt þat wel flíʒt séiþ þe wíse (2/176)
In
þu cháterest so dóþ on Írish próst (2/322)
the chatter of the extra syllable of chat’rest so might be regarded as artful, but it is as well to remember that this poet’s scribes were not especially faithful to his intentions, and that metrical variation may sometimes be a sign of scribal carelessness.
The text of Sir Orfeo (from about 1330) presents a rougher form of the four‐stress couplet. It is evident that at least some of the metrical irregularities were contributed by a scribe or a series of scribes, yet it is unlikely that the poet himself wrote a formal iambic line. Whatever the practices of individual poets, strict regularity of syllables was not fundamental to English verse as it was to French, and modulations of the standard pattern are often effectively used. In Sir Orfeo it may be that the marked irregularity of the passage describing the horror of the undead in the Fairy World (5/391–400) is designed as a jolt to the reader; on the other hand the restoration of earlier inflected forms (not attempted in this book) would often give a smoother line:
And súm[e] láy[en] wóde ybóunde (5/394)
So, too, the irregularity of
And whén ʒe understónd þat ý be spént (5/215)
would be improved by the substitution of the synonymous verb wite, which is actually used in the parallel line in another manuscript.
Chaucer employed short couplets in some early works, but later preferred a longer line of ten or eleven syllables, either in rhyming couplets (e.g. the Reeve’s Tale, text 18a) or in stanzaic form. The Parliament of Fowls (text 16), the Prioress’s Tale (text 18b) and Troilus (text 17) are composed in ‘rhyme‐royal’ stanzas of seven lines rhyming ababbcc. Like Gower, Chaucer was concerned with achieving the correct number of syllables in his longer line, and observed the same rules of elision; but, in the Parliament especially, the manuscripts are less faithful to his original intentions.
Rhymes in these poems are generally true, though later sound changes may have obscured this. ‘Boards’ and ‘words’ would now be half‐rhymes, but in Gower bordes and wordes (13/131–2) are true rhymes, as are dale and smale in Sir Orfeo (5/537–8). Identical rhymes are quite common, but only when they involve different parts of speech, as clawe, noun and verb, in 2/153–4, or a simple word with a compound, as soghte and besoghte in 13/241–2. For remarks on rhyme and word‐stress see 2.4 above.
Writers of lyrics chose a wide range of stanza‐forms, from the very simple patterns of the Rawlinson Lyrics (14a–f ), which are perhaps for singing, to the more complex schemes of the Harley Lyrics (14g–k). A burden or refrain accompanies one of the simplest (14b), as well as one of the most elaborate (14g). The models for lyric stanzas will again often have been French or Anglo‐Norman, though Latin hymns were also a strong and direct influence upon writers such as John of Grimestone (14l–r).
Rhymed verse frequently uses alliteration as an ornament of style; sometimes that alliteration is very heavy, as in the York Play (text 15), which is written in twelve‐line stanzas of regularly iambic lines. Pearl is also written in twelve‐line stanzas with heavy alliteration, rhyming on just three sounds: a b a b a b a b b c b c. For further details see the Headnote to text 10.
6.3 Alliterative Verse
In the later fourteenth century alliterative poetry flourished in the hands of some remarkable poets of the West and North‐West Midlands. They are represented in this book by William Langland, the Gawain‐poet, and the author of St Erkenwald (texts 7–11).
The alliterative line is based on principles quite different from those of rhymed verse, but they are essentially easy to understand. Each line is divided into half‐lines bound together by alliteration. Each half‐line normally has two stressed syllables; the two stresses of the first half‐line alliterate with the first stress of the second half‐line, while the last stress does not alliterate. So, with a standing for ‘alliteration’, the standard alliterative pattern is denoted aa/ax:
þe túlk þat þe trámmes . of trésoun þer wróʒt
Watz tríed for his trícherie . þe tréwest on érthe
Hit watz Énnias þe áthel . and his híghe kýnde (9/3–5)
In the practice of these poets, any vowel may alliterate with any other vowel and with h‐, as in the last line quoted.
This structural alliteration normally falls on stressed syllables. As already described in 2.4, the way a word is stressed in Modern English is generally a good guide to its Middle English stress‐pattern, although there are some variations, particularly in French loan‐words. So ‘deserved’ alliterates and is stressed on the first syllable in
Such a dúnt as þou hatz dált . dísserved þou hábbez (9/452)
‘Important’ words (nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs) are normally stressed in preference to ‘little’ words (prepositions, articles and conjunctions). When an adjective accompanies a noun, either may be stressed, as the following line illustrates:
Of brýʒt golde upon silk bórdes . bárred ful rýche (9/159)
Sometimes there are three alliterating syllables in the first half‐line. It may be appropriate to subordinate one of these, so that in the following the first word, siþen, is presumably unstressed, though alliterating:
Siþen þe sege and þe assaut . watz sesed at Troye (9/1)
Yet it is more difficult to subordinate the noun borʒ in the next line:
þe borʒ brittened and brent . to brondez and askez (9/2)
Non‐standard alliterative patterns, such as ax/ax or aa/xx, are also found, but many of them are perhaps the result of scribal error. An obvious example of such corruption is:
Wolde ʒe worþilych lorde . quoþ Gawan to þe kyng (9/343)
where we have adopted the simple emendation to Wawan, a form of Gawain’s name used elsewhere by the poet, to restore the standard alliterative pattern.
A stressed syllable is called a lift, a group of unstressed syllables a dip. The dips vary in length, and this determines the rhythmic structure of the half‐line. In the following two lines, the first has a four‐syllable dip before the