Part 2 — DIVISION II Verse-forms Common to the Middle and Modern English Periods CHAPTER IX LINES OF EIGHT FEET, FOUR FEET, TWO FEET, AND ONE FOOT

§ 125. Among the metres introduced into Middle English poetry in imitation of foreign models, perhaps the oldest is the four-foot verse, rhyming in couplets. This metre may be regarded as having originally arisen by halving the eight-foot line, although only an isolated example of this, dating from about the middle of the thirteenth century, quoted above (p. 127), is known in Middle English poetry. This, however, serves with special clearness to illustrate the resolution, by means of inserted rhyme, of the eight-foot long-line couplet into four-foot lines rhyming alternately (cf. § 78).

In the manuscript the verses, though rhyming in long lines, are written as short lines, with intermittent rhyme a b c b d b e b, just as the example of Modern English eight-foot iambic verse, quoted before (p. 127), is found printed with this arrangement, as is indeed generally the case with most long-line forms of that type. This metre calls for no other remarks on its rhythmical structure than will have to be made with regard to the four-foot verse.

§ 126. The four-foot line, rhyming in couplets, first appears in a paraphrase of the Pater Noster of the end of the twelfth century,[142] doubtless in imitation of the Old French vers octosyllabe made known in England by Anglo-Norman poets, such as Gaimar, Wace, Benoit, &c.

This French metre consists of eight syllables when the ending is monosyllabic, and nine when it is disyllabic.

The lines are always connected in couplets by rhyme, but masculine and feminine rhymes need not alternate with one another.

It is exactly the same with the Middle English four-foot line, except that the rising iambic rhythm comes out more clearly in it, and that, instead of the Romanic principle of counting the syllables, that of the equality of beats is perceptible, so that the equality of the number of syllables in the verses is not so strictly observed. Hence, all the deviations before mentioned from the strict formal structure of even-beat verses occur even in this early poem, and quite regularly constructed couplets are indeed but rare in it. Examples of this type are the following:

The first ten lines of the poem give a sufficient idea of the structure of the verse, and its characteristics:

Here we find almost all the rhythmical licences to be found in even-beat metres. Thus we have suppression of the anacrusis in line 8 and again in two consecutive lines, such as 15, 16:

and very often in the course of the poem, e.g. ll. 22, 29, 30, 37, &c., so that it acquires a loose, iambic-trochaic cadence; further, the absence of an unaccented syllable in the middle of the line (line 2); inversion of accent in line 9, and again in line 81, Láverd he ís of álle scáfte; two unaccented syllables at the beginning and in the interior of the verse in 4; light slurrings ll. 1, 3, 5; only ll. 7 and 10 are regularly constructed throughout. The same proportion of regular to irregular verses runs through the whole poem, in which, besides the licences mentioned, that of level stress is also often to be met with, especially in rhymes like wurþíng: héovenkíng 99–100; hatíng: king 193–4, 219–20; fóndúnge: swínkúnge 242–3.

§ 127. The treatment of the caesura in this metre also deserves, special mention, for this, as has already been stated, is one of the chief points in which the four-foot even-beat metre differs from the four-stress metre, as represented either by the old alliterative long line or by the later non-alliterating line. For there must be a caesura in every four-beat verse, and it must always be found in one definite place, viz. after the second beat next to any unaccented syllable or syllables that follow the beat, the line being thus divided into two rhythmically fairly equal halves. On the other hand, for the four-foot verse, not only in this, its earliest appearance, but in the rest of Middle and Modern English literature, the caesura is not obligatory, and when it does occur it may, theoretically speaking, stand in any place in the line, although it most frequently appears after the second foot, particularly in the oldest period.

The caesura may (§ 80) be of three kinds:

(1) Monosyllabic or masculine caesura:

(2) Disyllabic or feminine caesura, two kinds of which are to be distinguished, viz.

(a) Lyric caesura, within a foot:

(b) Epic caesura caused by a supernumerary unaccented syllable before the pause:

These three kinds of caesura, the last of which, it is true, we meet here only sporadically, may thus in four-foot verse also occur after, as well as in the other feet. Thus we find in the very first line, a lyrical caesura after the first foot:

This, however, seldom happens in the oldest examples, in which caesuras sharply dividing the line are rare, enjambement being only seldom admitted. Examples of verses without caesuras are to be found, among others, in the following: Þúrh béelzebúbes swíkedóm 10, Intó þe þósternésse héllen 104. As a rule, in the four-foot verse as well as in French octosyllabics, a pause does not occur until the end, on account of the shortness of this metre, which generally only suffices for one rhythmic section, while in four-beat verse a regular division into two rhythmic sections, and consequently the constant occurrence of a caesura, is rendered possible by the greater number of unaccented syllables.

The end of the line may, in any order, have either a masculine rhyme, as in ll. 1–4, 9, 10, or a feminine rhyme, as in ll. 7 and 8. There occur besides, but seldom, trisyllabic rhymes, such as those in ll. 5–6, or súnegen: múnegen 141–2

§ 128. This metre continued to be very popular in Middle and Modern English poetry, and is still extensively used. As a rule its structure constantly remained the same; nevertheless we may, in both periods, distinguish between two well-marked ways of treating it. It was, for instance, at the end of the thirteenth and in the first half of the fourteenth century, very freely handled in the North of England in the Surtees Psalter, further by Robert Mannyng in his Handlyng Sinne, and by Richard Rolle de Hampole in his Pricke of Conscience. Their treatment of this verse is characterized, for instance, by the remarkably frequent occurrence of two and even three unaccented syllables at the beginning and in the middle of the line, e.g.:

In þi rightwísenésses biþénke I sál

Þine sághes nóght forgéte withál.

Psalm cxviii, v. 16.

And rékened þe cústome hóuses echóne,

At whých þey had góde and at whýche nóne.

Mannyng, Handlyng Sinne, ll. 5585–6.

Other rhythmical licences, such as the omission of unaccented syllables in the middle of a verse, and inversion of accent, are frequent in these compositions. Level stress, on the other hand, for the most part is found only in rhyme, as shenshépe: kepe Hampole 380–1; come: boghsóme ib. 394–5.

The other extreme of strict regularity in the number of syllables is exhibited in another group of North English and Scottish compositions of the fourteenth century, such as the Metrical Homilies, the Cursor Mundi, Barbour’s Bruce, Wyntoun’s Chronykyl. The metrical licences most frequent here are level stress, suppression of the anacrusis, and the omission of unaccented syllables in the middle of the line, in the Metrical Homilies. The rhythm is, however, as a rule, strictly iambic, and the number of syllables eight or nine, according as the rhymes are masculine or feminine.

§ 129. The contemporaneous literary productions of the Midlands and South written in this metre generally observe a mean between the free and the strict versification of the two northern groups.

These are inter alia The Story of Genesis and Exodus, The Owl and Nightingale, The Lay of Havelok, Sir Orfeo, King Alisander, several compositions of Chaucer’s,[143] as, for instance, The Book of the Duchesse, The House of Fame, Gower’s Confessio Amantis, and others. The last work, as well as The Owl and Nightingale, is written in almost perfectly regular iambic verses, in which the syllables are strictly counted. The other compositions more frequently admit the familiar rhythmical licences and have a freer movement, but none to the same extent as the Pater Noster. In artistic perfection this metre presents itself to us in Chaucer, who was particularly skilful in employing and varying the enjambement. A short specimen from his House of Fame (ll. 151–74) will illustrate this:

§ 130. Four-foot verses often occur also in Middle English in connexion with other metrical forms, especially with three-foot verses, e.g. in the Septenary, which is resolved by the rhyme into two short lines, and in the tail-rhyme stanza, or rime couée (cf. §§ 78, 79).

In these combinations the structure of the metre remains essentially the same, only there are in many poems more frequent instances of suppression of the anacrusis, so that the metre assumes a variable cadence, partly trochaic, partly iambic. At the end of the Middle English period the four-foot verse was, along with other metrical forms, employed by preference in the earlier dramatic productions, and was skilfully used by Heywood, among others, in his interlude, The Four P.’s.[144].

§ 131. In he Modern English period this metre has also found great favour, and we may, as in the case of other metres, distinguish between a strict and a freer variety of it. The strict form was, and is, mostly represented in lyric poetry, in verses rhyming in couplets or in cross rhyme. The rhythm is generally in this case (since the separation between iambic and trochaic verse-forms became definitely established) strictly iambic, generally with monosyllabic rhymes.

A greater interest attaches to the freer variety of the metre, which is to be regarded as a direct continuation of the Middle English four-foot verse, inasmuch as it was practised by the poets of the first Modern English period in imitation of earlier models, and has been further cultivated by their successors down to the most recent times. The characteristic feature in this treatment of the four-foot verse is the frequent suppression of the anacrusis, by which it comes to resemble the four-beat verse, along with which it is often used. But whilst the latter generally has an iambic-anapaestic or trochaic-dactylic structure, and is constantly divided by the caesura into two halves, the Modern English four-foot verse of the freer type has, as a rule, an alternately iambic and trochaic rhythm, with a rare occurrence of caesuras. Shakespeare and other dramatists often employ this metre for lyrical passages in their dramas. Of longer poems in the earlier period Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso are conspicuous examples.

The following passage from L’Allegro (ll. 11–16) may serve as a specimen:

The structure of the verse is essentially iambic, though the iambic metre frequently, by suppression of the initial theses, as in the thirteenth and fifteenth lines of this passage, falls into a trochaic cadence. Pure trochaic verses, i.e. those that begin with an accented syllable and end with an unaccented one, occur in these two poems, in couplets, only once, L’Allegro (ll. 69–70):

With masculine endings such couplets are frequent, e.g. Il Penseroso, 67–8:

further, ll. 75–6, 81–2, 141–2, &c.

As a rule, pure iambic lines rhyme together, or an iambic with a line that has a trochaic cadence, as, for instance, in the above specimen, L’Allegro, 13–14 and 15–16.

Besides initial truncation there also occur here the other metrical licences observed in iambic rhythm.

§ 132. Many sections of the narrative poems of Coleridge, Scott, and Byron, e.g. the latter’s Siege of Corinth, are written in this form, with which, in especially animated passages, four-beat verses often alternate. Cf., for instance, the following passage, xvi, from the last-named poem:

Lines 5–7 can be at once recognized as four-stress verses by the iambic-anapaestic rhythm, as well as by the strongly-marked caesura, which, in the four-foot verses 4, and especially 8 and 10, is entirely or almost entirely absent (cf. pp. 98–9); and both metrical forms, the calmer four-foot verse and the more animated four-stress metre, are in harmonious agreement with the tone of this passage.

Four-foot lines, forming component parts of metrically heterogeneous types of stanzas, such, for instance, as the tail-rhyme stave, are generally more regularly constructed than in the Middle English period.

§ 133. Among the metrical forms which took their rise from the four-foot line, the most noteworthy are the two-foot and the one-foot verse, the former the result of halving the four-foot verse, the latter of dividing the two-foot verse, as a rule, by means of the rhyme. These verse-forms only seldom occur in the Middle English period, as a rule in anisometrical stanzas in connexion with verses of greater length. Thus, in the poem in Wright’s Specimens of Lyric Poetry, p. 38, composed in the entwined tail-rhyme stanza, the short lines have two accents: wiþóute stríf: y wýte, a wýf 10–12; in tóune tréwe: while ý may gléwe 4–6. The eighteen-lined enlarged tail-rhyme stave of the ballad, The Nut-brown Maid (Percy’s Reliques, iii. 6), also consists of two- and three-foot lines; in this case the two-foot lines may be conceived as the result of halving the first hemistich of the septenary line.

In Modern English two-foot lines are also rare and are chiefly found in anisometrical stanzas. They do occur, however, here and there in isometrical poems, either written in couplets or in stanzas of lines rhyming alternately; as, for instance, in Drayton, An Amouret Anacreontic:

The commonest rhythmical licences are inversion of accent and initial truncation. In stanzas verses of this sort occur, for the most part it seems, with the rhyme-order a b c b, for instance in Burns, The Cats like Kitchen, and Moore, When Love is Kind, so that these verses might be regarded as four-foot lines rhyming in couplets.

§ 134. One-foot lines, both with single and with double ending, likewise occur in Middle English only as component parts of anisometrical stanzas, as a rule as bob-verses in what are called bob-wheel staves; as, for instance, in a poem in Wright’s Songs and Carols (Percy Society, 1847), the line With áye rhyming with the three-foot line Aye, áye, I dár well sáy; in the Towneley Mysteries, the verse Alás rhyming with A góod máster he wás; in an Easter Carol (Morris, An Old Engl. Miscellany, pp. 197–9), the line So strónge rhyming with Jóye hím wit sónge, or In lónde and of hónde rhyming with Al with jóye þat is fúnde.

Metrical licences can naturally only seldom occur in such short lines.

One-foot iambic lines occur also in the Modern English period almost exclusively in anisometrical stanzas. A little poem entitled Upon his Departure hence, in Herrick’s Hesperides, may be quoted as a curiosity, as it is written in continuous one-foot lines of this kind, rhyming in triplets:

Thus Í Passe bý And díe

As óne Unknówn And góne

I’m máde A sháde And láid

I’ the gráve, There háve, My cáve:

Where téll I dwéll. Farewéll.

One-foot lines with feminine ending are employed by Moore as the middle member of the stanza in the poem Joys of Youth, how fleeting.