English Verse Part 22

The following specimen is one of the latest examples of fairly regular alliterative verse, written in England, that has come down to us. It is from a ballad of the battle of Flodden Field (1513).

Archers uttered out their arrowes, and egerlie they shotten.

They proched us with speares, and put many over, That the blood outbrast at there broken harnish.

There was swinging out of swords, and swapping of headds; We blanked them with bills through all their bright armor, That all the dale dunned of their derfe strokes.

(_Scotishe Ffielde_, from Percy's Folio MS. In FLuGEL'S _Neuenglisches Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 156.)

iii. _Rime_ (_i.e. end-rime_)

Full rime, or end-rime, involves the princ.i.p.ally stressed vowel in the riming word, and all that follows that vowel. When there is an entire unstressed syllable following, the rime is called double, or feminine.

Triple rime is also recognized, though rare.[11] End-rime being a stranger to the early Germanic languages, its appearance in any of them may commonly be taken as a sign of foreign influence. In general, of course, rime and the stanza were introduced together into English verse, under the influence of Latin hymns and French lyrics.

The functions of rime in English verse may perhaps be grouped under three heads: the function of emphasis, the function of forming beautiful or pleasurable sounds, and the function of combining or organizing the verses. It is with reference to the first of these that Professor Corson speaks of rime as "an enforcing agency of the individual verse." Under the second head rime is considered simply as a form of tone-color, and as furnishing a part of the melody of verse. The third function, by which individual verses are bound into stanzas, is, in a sense, the most important.

On the subject of the aesthetic values of rime, see the chapter on "poetic unities" in Corson's _Primer of English Verse_, and Ehrenfeld's _Studien zur Theorie des Reims_ (Zurich, 1897). The problem of the relative values of rimed and unrimed verse will come up in connection with the history of the heroic couplet and of blank verse. The objection always urged against rime is that its demands are likely to turn the poet aside from the normal order of his ideas. Herder, as Ehrenfeld points out, thought that this was particularly true of English verse, the uninflected language not providing so naturally for cases where thought and sound are parallel. A recent protest against the tyranny of rime is found in the article by Mr. Larminie, cited on page 115, where it is claimed that undue attention to form is thinning out the substance of modern poetry, and that the demands of rime should be relaxed. See also Ben Jonson's "Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme," for a humorous complaint against the requirements of rime upon the poet.

The origin of rime has been a subject of prolonged controversy. See the monograph by Ehrenfeld already cited; Meyer's _Anfang und Ursprung der rythmischen Dichtung_ (Munich, 1884); W. Grimm's _Geschichte des Reims_ (1851); Norden's _Antike Kunstprosa_ (Leipzig, 1898; _Anhang ueber die Geschichte des Reims_); Kluge's article, _Zur Geschichte des Reimes im Altgermanischen_, in Paul u.

Braune's _Beitrage_, vol. ix. p. 422; and Schipper, vol. i. pp. 34 ff. Meyer's work is an exposition of the theory that rime was an importation from the Orient. In like manner, it has been held by many that the poetry of Otfried (the first regularly rimed German verse) was produced under Latin influence wholly, and that rime was introduced by him to the Germans (see the work by Kawczynski, cited p. 117). Herder (see Ehrenfeld's monograph) regarded rime as a natural growth of the instinct for symmetry in all human taste, closely connected with dance-rhythms, all forms of parallelism, and the like. Similarity of inflectional endings in similar clauses, he pointed out, would naturally develop rime in any inflected language. This view is in line with the tendency of recent opinion.

Schipper says, in effect: "Is rime to be regarded as the invention of a special people, like the Arabian, or is it a form of art which developed in the poetic language of the Aryan peoples, separately in the several nations? In the opinion of the princ.i.p.al scholars the latter opinion is the correct one. The chief support of this opinion is the fact that traces of rime, in greater or less number, appear in the oldest poetry of almost all the partially civilized peoples. 'It is,' says C. F. Meyer, 'something inborn, original, universally human, like poetry and music, and no more than these the special invention of a single people or a particular time.' In fact, traces of rime may be noticed in the poetry of the Greeks, in Homer, aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, as also in the poetry of the Romans; in a more developed form it appears in the late middle Latin clerical poetry. In the Celtic languages, moreover, rime is the indispensable mark of the poetic form, even in the oldest extant specimens. The Latin poetry just referred to gives interesting evidence that rime is a characteristic sign of popular poetry. While the quant.i.tative system became dominant, with the artistic verse-forms of the Greeks, in the Golden Age of Roman literature, the early Saturnian verses, written in free rhythms, already showed the popular taste for similarity of sound in the form of alliteration; and in the post-cla.s.sical time, with the fall of the quant.i.tative metres, rime again came to the front in songs intended for the people. The same element was made so essential a characteristic in the organization of verse in the mediaeval Latin, that 'carmen rhythmic.u.m' came to signify a rimed poem, and the later Latinists used the word 'rhythmus' precisely in the sense of 'rime.'"

Schipper goes on to inquire whether this mediaeval Latin poetry was the means of introducing rime to the Germanic peoples. Wackernagel held it as certain that Otfried learned his rimes from Latin poems; but as Otfried declares that his poetry is intended to take the place of useless popular songs, it seems probable that he was not using an innovation, and that rime was already popular in Old High German. Indeed, it appears sporadically in the _Hildebrandslied_ and the _Heliand_. Grimm observes that it is theoretically unlikely that alliteration should have vanished suddenly and rime as suddenly have taken its place. The gradual development of rime from a.s.sonance among the Romance peoples suggests the same thing. The early appearance of rime by the side of alliteration is ill.u.s.trated by C. F. Meyer (_Historische Studien_, Leipzig, 1851) from the Norse _Edda_, from _Beowulf_, Caedmon, etc. In the later Anglo-Saxon period rime was evidently securing a considerable though uncertain hold. The Riming Poem suggests what development rime might have had in English without the incoming of Romance influences. Grimm observes that, while to his mind alliteration was a finer and n.o.bler quality than rime, there was need of a stronger sound-likeness which should hold the attention more firmly by its unchanging place at the end of the line. Schipper remarks, finally, that the fact that the use of rime in connection with alliteration was especially popular in the southern half of England, where the Romance influence was strongest, may suggest why in the more purely Germanic northern half alliteration remained the single support of the poetic form well into the fifteenth century.

The appendix to the work of Norden, cited above, is a fuller development of ideas frequently suggested by the sporadic appearance of rime in early Greek and Latin literature. Norden gives many examples of this "rhetorical rime," as well as of rime arising naturally from parallelism of sentence structure found in primitive charms, incantations, and the like. In particular he emphasizes the influence of the figure of _h.o.m.oteleuton_ as used in the literary prose of the cla.s.sical languages. His conclusion is as follows: "Rime, then, was potentially as truly present in the Greek and Latin languages, from the earliest times, as in every other language; but in the metrical (quant.i.tative) poetry it had no regular place, and appeared there in general only sporadically and by chance, being used by only a few poets as a rhetorical ornament. It became actual by the transition from the metrical poetry to the rhythmical (that is, the syllable-counting, in which--in the Latin--the chief consideration is still for the word-accent); and this transition was consummated by the aid of the highly poetic prose, already used for centuries, which was constructed according to the laws of rhythm, and in which the rhetorical h.o.m.oteleuton had gained an ever-increasing significance. In particular, rime found an entrance through sermons composed in such prose, and delivered in a voice closely approaching that of singing, into the hymn-poetry which was intimately related to such sermons. From the Latin hymn-poetry it was carried into other languages, from the ninth century onward. It is self-evident that in these languages also rime was potentially present before it became actual through the influence of foreign poetry; for in this region also there operates the highest immanent law of every being and every form of development,--that in the whole field of life nothing absolutely new is invented, but merely slumbering germs are awakened to active life." (_Antike Kunstprosa_, vol. ii. pp. 867 ff.)

Me lifes onlah. se is leoht onwrah.

and aet torhte geteoh. tillice onwrah.

glaed waes ic gliwum. glenged hiwum.

blissa bleoum. blostma hiwum.

Secgas mec segon. symbel ne alegon.

feorh-gife gefegon. fraetwed waegon.

wic ofer wongum. wennan gongum.

lisse mid longum. leoma getongum.

(From the "Riming Poem" of the _Codex Exoniensis_.)

This puzzlingly early appearance of rime in Anglo-Saxon verse, in conjunction with fairly regular alliteration, is of especial interest.[12] "It is supposed," says Schipper, "that this new form has for its foundation the Scandinavian _Runhenda_, and that this was known to the Anglo-Saxons through the Old Norse poet, Egil Skalagrimsson, who was living in England in the tenth century, and who stayed twice in England at Athelstan's court, writing a poem in Northumbria in the same form." He also observes that the attempt to attain something like equality of feet and half-lines suggests the Norse models.

Sainte Marie, Cristes bur, Maidenes clenhad, moderes flur, Dilie mine sinne, rixe in min mod, Bring me to winne with self G.o.d.

(Verses attributed to St. G.o.dric. ab. 1100.)

G.o.dric, the hermit of Norfolk, lived about 1065-1170. These verses seem to give the earliest extant appearance of end-rime in Middle English.

The Romance words in the hymn indicate the presence of French influence.

(On this hymn see article in _Englische Studien_, vol. xi. p. 401.)

Woden hehde a haehste la?e: an ure aelderne dae?en.

he heom wes leof: aefne al swa heore lif.

he wes heore walden: and heom wurscipe duden.

ene feore daei i ere wike: heo ?iven him to wurscipe.

a unre heo ?iven ures daei: for i at heo heom helpen maei.

Freon heore laefdi: heo ?iven hire fridaei.

Saturnus heo ?iven saetterdaei: ene Sunne heo ?iven sonedaei.

Monenen heo ?ivenen monedaei: Tidea heo ?even tisdaei.

us seide Haengest: cnihten alre hendest.

(LAYAMON: _Brut_, ll. 13921-13938. Madden ed., vol. ii. p. 158. ab.

1200.)

On the verse of the _Brut_ see above, p. 119.

Ich aem elder en ich wes a wintre and alore.

Ic waelde more aune ic dude mi wit ah to ben more.

Wel lange ic habbe child ibeon a weorde end ech adede.

eh ic beo awintre eald tu ?yng i eom a rede....

Mest al at ic habbe ydon ys idelnesse and chilce.

Wel late ic habbe me bi oht bute me G.o.d do milce.

(_Poema Morale_, ll. 1-4, 7, 8. In Zupitza's _Alt-und Mittelenglisches ubungsbuch_, p. 58. ab. 1200.)

The _Poema Morale_, evidently one of the most popular poems of the early Middle English period, seems to be the earliest one of any considerable length in which end-rime was used regularly.

For other early examples of rime introduced into English under foreign influence, see above, in the section on the Stanza.

_Double and triple rime._

To our theme.--The man who has stood on the Acropolis, And looked down over Attica; or he Who has sailed where picturesque Constantinople is, Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis, Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh, May not think much of London's first appearance-- But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence?

(BYRON: _Don Juan_, canto xi. st. vii.)

'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed, With persons of no sort of education, Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, Grow tired of scientific conversation; I don't choose to say much upon this head, I'm a plain man, and in a single station, But--oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?

(_Ib._, canto i. st. xxii.)

So the painter Pacchiarotto Constructed himself a grotto In the quarter of Stalloreggi-- As authors of note allege ye.

And on each of the whitewashed sides of it He painted--(none far and wide so fit As he to perform in fresco)-- He painted nor cried _quiesco_ Till he peopled its every square foot With Man--from the Beggar barefoot To the n.o.ble in cap and feather; All sorts and conditions together.

The Soldier in breastplate and helmet Stood frowningly--hail fellow well met-- By the Priest armed with bell, book, and candle.

Nor did he omit to handle The Fair s.e.x, our brave distemperer: Not merely King, Clown, Pope, Emperor-- He diversified too his Hades Of all forms, pinched Labor and paid Ease, With as mixed an a.s.semblage of Ladies.

(BROWNING: _Pacchiarotto_, v.)

What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold: When we mind labor, then only, we're too old-- What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?

And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil), I hope to get safely out of the turmoil And arrive one day at the land of the Gypsies, And find my lady, or hear the last news of her From some old thief and son of Lucifer, His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop, Sunburned all over like an aethiop.

(BROWNING: _The Flight of the d.u.c.h.ess_, xvii.)

These pa.s.sages ill.u.s.trate sufficiently the grotesque effects of double and triple rime in English verse,--effects of which Byron and Browning are the unquestioned masters. Professor Corson observes that the double rime is to be regarded as the means of "some special emphasis," whether serious or humorous. More commonly the effect is humorous, of course, as in _Don Juan_, where the rimes indicate "the lowering of the poetic key--the reduction of true poetic seriousness." The rimes in the _Flight of the d.u.c.h.ess_ Mr. Edmund Gurney has said sometimes "produce the effect of jokes made during the performance of a symphony." The specimen which follows ill.u.s.trates the use of these double and triple rimes for a wholly serious purpose. Professor Corson remarks that in this case the rime serves "as a most effective foil to the melancholy theme. It is not unlike the laughter of frenzied grief." It is interesting to note that in the Italian language, where double rimes are almost constant, masculine rimes are sometimes used for grotesque effect in the same way that English poets use the feminine.