English Verse Part 29

"'A toy, Henry, dous amis, me complain, Pour ce que ne cueur ne mont ne plein; Car a piet suy, sans cheval et sans selle, Et si n'ay mais esmeraude, ne belle.'

... Now as Chaucer was taken prisoner in France in 1359, he had an excellent opportunity for making himself acquainted with this poem, and with others, possibly, in a similar metre, which have not come down to us." (_The Prioress's Tale_, Introduction, pp. xix, xx.) Paris has shown that the real date of the poem in question was 1340; the t.i.tle quoted by Skeat is Tarbe's modern French caption.

Professor Kittredge has called my attention to the fact that there is another poem of Machault's in the same metre (P. Paris's edition of _Voir-Dit_, p. 56), and also a poem by Froissart, the "Orloge Amoureus."

Ten Brink calls attention to the possibility of the influence upon Chaucer's couplet of the Italian hendecasyllabic verse. The _Compleynte to Pitee_, it is true, was written probably before the Italian journey of 1372-1373; but in Italy the "full significance"

of the metre may have become clear to Chaucer. "After that journey the heroic verse appears almost exclusively as his poetic instrument.... Of still greater significance is the fact that Chaucer's heroic verse differs from the French decasyllabic in all the particulars in which the Italian hendecasyllabic departs from the common source, and approaches the verse of Dante and Boccaccio as closely as the metre of a Germanic language can approach a Romance metre. It may be added also that the heroic verse in the _Compleynte to Pitee_ stands nearer the French decasyllabic than that of the _Troilus_ or the _Canterbury Tales_."

Dr. Lewis, on the other hand, in _The Foreign Sources of English Versification_, would minimize the foreign sources of Chaucer's couplet. Not only the unaccentual character of the French verse is opposed to the theory of the French source, but also, he believes, the fixed cesura. "In the English verse there is no such thing: indeed there is no cesura at all, in the French sense of the word.... Schipper relegates to a foot-note the suggestion that our heroic verse may have originated in a different way, either through an abridgment of the alexandrine or through an extension of the four-foot line. This is of course more nearly the true view, but it is entirely immaterial which of the last two explanations we hit upon. Accentual verses of four, six, and seven feet were already familiar long before Chaucer's time. They exhibited a more or less regular alternation of arsis and thesis. To devise a verse which should be essentially the same in principle, but should have five accents instead of four, six, or seven, was a task that Chaucer's genius might well achieve unaided" (pp. 98, 99).

It is quite possible that a combination of all these views may be nearest the truth. The objection to the French influence on the ground of the syllabic (non-accentual) quality of the French verse does not seem to be serious, since any imitation of French verse by an Englishman would be likely to take on the accentual form; and, that once done, the need for the fixed cesura would vanish. But it is worth while to emphasize the fact that the genius of English verse was not so averse to the formation of a decasyllabic five-stress line as to make it a serious innovation. This view is further emphasized by the next specimen.

Is not thilke the mery moneth of May, When love-lads masken in fresh aray?

How falles it, then, we no merrier bene, Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene?

Our bloncket liveryes bene all to sadde For thilke same season, when all is ycladd With pleasaunce: the grownd with gra.s.se, the Woods With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds.

... Tho to the greene Wood they speeden hem all, To fetchen home May with their musicall: And home they bringen in a royall throne, Crowned as king: and his Queene attone Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend A fayre flocke of Faeries, and a fresh bend Of lovely Nymphs. (O that I were there, To helpen the Ladyes their Maybush beare!) Ah! Piers, bene not thy teeth on edge, to thinke

(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, May_. 1579.)

This specimen is properly not in five-stress verse, but in irregular four-stress ("tumbling verse"); compare the specimen on p. 158, above.

We have a close approach, however, to the regular five-stress verse, in such lines as the fourth, fifth, eleventh, thirteenth, and seventeenth.

On this and similar pa.s.sages in the _Shepherd's Calendar_, as ill.u.s.trating the close relation between the native measure and the newer one, see an article by Professor Gummere, in the _American Journal of Philology_, vol. vii. pp. 53ff. Other verses cited by Dr. Gummere are:

"Whose way is wildernesse, whose ynne Penaunce."

"And dirks the beauty of my blossomes rownd."

"That oft the blood springeth from woundes wyde."

"There at the dore he cast me downe hys pack."

It is pointed out that the regular five-stress line, when having--as very frequently--only four full stresses (two or three light syllables coming together, especially at the pause), can hardly be distinguished from certain forms of the native four-stress verse. See also the Eclogues for February and August, in the _Shepherd's Calendar_. Dr.

Gummere's conclusion is, that "practically all the elements of Anglo-Saxon verse are preserved in our modern poetry, though in different combinations, with changed proportional importance."

But the false Fox most kindly played his part; For whatsoever mother-wit or art Could work, he put in proof: no practice sly, No counterpoint of cunning policy, No reach, no breach, that might him profit bring, But he the same did to his purpose wring....

He fed his cubs with fat of all the soil, And with the sweet of others' sweating toil; He crammed them with crumbs of benefices, And fill'd their mouths with meeds of malefices.

... No statute so established might be, Nor ordinance so needful, but that he Would violate, though not with violence, Yet under color of the confidence The which the Ape repos'd in him alone, And reckon'd him the kingdom's corner-stone.

(SPENSER: _Mother Hubbard's Tale_, ll. 1137-1166. 1591.)

Spenser's use of the heroic couplet for the _Mother Hubbard's Tale_ is the earliest instance of its adoption in English for satirical verse,--a purpose for which its later history showed it to be peculiarly well fitted.

Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath, From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath: Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves, Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives: Many would praise the sweet smell as she past, When 'twas the odor which her breath forth cast; And there for honey bees have sought in vain, And, beat from thence, have lighted there again.

About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone, Which, lighten'd by her neck, like diamonds shone.

(MARLOWE: _Hero and Leander_, ll. 17-26. ab. 1590, pub. 1598.)

Too popular is tragic poesy, Straining his tip-toes for a farthing fee, And doth beside on rimeless numbers tread; Unbid iambics flow from careless head.

Some braver brain in high heroic rhymes Compileth worm-eat stories of old times: And he, like some imperious Maronist, Conjures the Muses that they him a.s.sist.

Then strives he to bombast his feeble lines With far-fetch'd phrase.-- ...

Painters and poets, hold your ancient right: Write what you will, and write not what you might: Their limits be their list, their reason will.

But if some painter in presuming skill Should paint the stars in centre of the earth, Could ye forbear some smiles, and taunting mirth?

(JOSEPH HALL: _Virgidemiarum Libri VI._, bk. i. satire 4. 1597.)

Joseph Hall was the most vigorous satirist of the group of Elizabethans who, in the last decade of the sixteenth century, were imitating the satires of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius. Hall's satires have a curiously eighteenth-century flavor, and his couplets are frequently very similar to those of the age of Pope. Thus Thomas Warton (in his _History of English Poetry_) observed of Hall that "the fabric of the couplets approaches to the modern standard;" and Anderson, who edited the _British Poets_ in 1795, said: "Many of his lines would do honor to the most harmonious of our modern poets. The sense has generally such a pause, and will admit of such a punctuation at the close of the second line, as if it were calculated for a modern ear." On the verse of these Elizabethan satirists in general, see _The Rise of Formal Satire in England_, by the present editor (_Publications of the Univ. of Penna_.).

On the other hand, the verse of the satires of John Donne, from which the following specimen is taken, is the roughest and most difficult of all the satires of the group. The reputation of Donne's satires for metrical ruggedness has affected unjustly that of his other poetry and that of the Elizabethan satires in general. Dryden said: "Would not Donne's Satires, which abound with so much wit, appear more charming if he had taken care of his words and of his numbers?" (_Essay on Satire._) And Pope "versified" two of them, so as to bring them into a form pleasing to the ear of his age.

Therefore I suffered this: towards me did run A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came: A thing which would have posed Adam to name; Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies, Than Afric's monsters, Guiana's rarities;...

Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seen) Become tufftaffaty; and our children shall See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all.

This thing hath travelled, and faith, speaks all tongues, And only knoweth what to all states belongs.

(JOHN DONNE: _Satire iv._ ll. 17 ff. ab. 1593.)

This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas, And utters it again when G.o.d doth please.

He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares At wakes, and wa.s.sails, meetings, markets, fairs; And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know, Have not the grace to grace it with such show.

This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve.

Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.

He can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy; This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice In honorable terms: nay, he can sing A mean most meanly, and, in ushering, Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet; The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.

(SHAKSPERE: _Love's Labor's Lost_, V. ii. 315-330. ab. 1590.)

The use of rimed couplets in Shakspere's dramas is especially characteristic of his earlier work. In this play, _Love's Labor's Lost_, Dowden says, "there are about two rhymed lines to every one of blank verse" (_Shakspere Primer_, p. 44). In the late plays, on the other hand, rime disappears almost altogether. It will be observed that while Shakspere's heroic verse is usually fairly regular, with not very many run-on lines, it yet differs in quality from that of satires. The dramatic use moulds it into different cadences, and the single couplet is, perhaps, less noticeably the unit of the verse.

Shepherd, I pray thee stay. Where hast thou been?

Or whither goest thou? Here be woods as green As any; air likewise as fresh and sweet As where smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet Face of the curled streams; with flowers as many As the young spring gives, and as choice as any; Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells, Arbors o'ergrown with woodbines, caves, and dells; Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing, Or gather rushes, to make many a ring For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,-- How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes She took eternal fire that never dies; How she conveyed him softly in a sleep, His temples bound with poppy, to the steep Head of old Latmus, where she stoops each night, Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, To kiss her sweetest.

(FLETCHER: _The Faithful Shepherdess_, I. iii. ab. 1610.)

Fletcher uses the couplet in this drama with a freedom hardly found elsewhere until the time of Keats; see the remark of Symonds, quoted p.

210, below.

If Rome so great, and in her wisest age, Fear'd not to boast the glories of her stage, As skilful Roscius, and grave aesop, men, Yet crown'd with honors, as with riches, then; Who had no less a trumpet of their name Than Cicero, whose every breath was fame: How can so great example die in me, That, Allen, I should pause to publish thee?

Who both their graces in thyself hast more Outstript, than they did all that went before: And present worth in all dost so contract, As others speak, but only thou dost act.

Wear this renown. 'Tis just, that who did give So many poets life, by one should live.

(BEN JONSON: _Epigram Lx.x.xIX, to Edward Allen._ 1616.)

Jonson is thought by some to have been the founder of the cla.s.sical school of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which made the heroic couplet peculiarly its own. See on this subject an article by Prof. F. E. Sch.e.l.ling, "Ben Jonson and the Cla.s.sical School," in the _Publications of the Modern Language a.s.sociation_, n. s. vol. vi. p.

221. Professor Sch.e.l.ling finds in Jonson's verse all the characteristics of the later couplet of Waller and Dryden: end-stopped lines and couplets, a preference for medial cesura, and an ant.i.thetical structure of the verse. "No better specimen of Jonson's ant.i.thetical manner could be found," he says further, than the Epigram here quoted. So far as this ant.i.thetical quality of Jonson's verse is concerned, Professor Sch.e.l.ling's view cannot be questioned; but that Jonson shows any singular preference for end-stopped lines and couplets may be seriously questioned.

These mighty peers placed in the gilded barge, Proud with the burden of so brave a charge, With painted oars the youths begin to sweep Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep; Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war Between the wind and tide that fiercely jar.

As when a sort of l.u.s.ty shepherds try Their force at football, care of victory Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast, That their encounters seem too rough for jest; They ply their feet, and still the restless ball, Tossed to and fro, is urged by them all: So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds, And like effect of their contention finds.

(WALLER: _Of the Danger his Majesty [being Prince] escaped in the Road at St. Andrews._ 1623?)

Such is the mould that the blest tenant feeds On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds; With candied plantains, and the juicy pine, On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine, And with potatoes fat their wanton swine; Nature these cates with such a lavish hand Pours out among them, that our coa.r.s.er land Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return, Which not for warmth but ornament is worn; For the kind spring, which but salutes us here, Inhabits there and courts them all the year; Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live, At once they promise what at once they give; So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, None sickly lives, or dies before his time....

O how I long my careless limbs to lay Under the plantain's shade, and all the day With amorous airs my fancy entertain, Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein!