The English Language Part 101

2. That whether, as was indicated by the author of [Greek: Metron ariston], we p.r.o.nounce the anapaest _p[)a]t[)u]lae_, precisely as we p.r.o.nounce the dactyle _T[=i]t[)y]r[)e]_, or draw a distinction between them is also indifferent. However much, as is done in some of the schools, we may say _scri-bere_ rather than _scrib-ere_, or _am-or_, rather than _a-mor_, under the notion that we are lengthening or shortening certain syllables, one unsurmountable dilemma still remains, viz., that the shorter we p.r.o.nounce the vowel, the more we suggest the notion of the consonant which follows it being doubled; whilst double consonants _lengthen_ the vowel which precedes them. Hence, whilst it is certain that _patulae_ and _t.i.tyre_ may be p.r.o.nounced (and that without hurting the metre) so as to be both of the same _quant.i.ty_, it is doubtful what that _quant.i.ty_ is. Sound for sound _T[)i]tyre_ may be as short as _p[)a]tulae_. Sound for sound _p[=a]ttulae_ may be as long as _T[=i]ttyre_.

Hence, the only a.s.sumptions requisite are--

_a._ That Englishmen do _not_ read the cla.s.sical metres according to their quant.i.ties.

_b._ That, nevertheless, they find metre in them.

-- 660. _Why are the cla.s.sical metres metrical to English readers?_--Notwithstanding the extent to which quant.i.ty differs from accent, there is no metre so exclusively founded upon the former as to be without a certain amount of the {517} latter; and in the majority (at least) of the cla.s.sical (and probably other) metres _there is a sufficient amount of accentual elements to const.i.tute metre; even independent of the quant.i.tative ones._

-- 661. _Lat.i.tude in respect to the periodicity of the recurrence of similarly accented syllables in English._--Metre (as stated in p. 499), "is the recurrence, within certain intervals, of syllables similarly affected."

The particular way in which syllables are _affected_ in English metre is that of _accent_.

The more regular the period at which similar accents recur the more typical the metre.

Nevertheless absolute regularity is not requisite.

This leads to the difference between symmetrical and unsymmetrical metres.

-- 662. _Symmetrical metres._--Allowing for indifference of the number of syllables in the last measure, it is evident that in all lines where the measures are dissyllabic the syllables will be a multiple of the accents, _i. e._, they will be twice as numerous. Hence, with three accents there are six syllables; with four accents, eight syllables, &c.

Similarly, in all lines where the measures are trisyllabic the syllables will also be multiples of the accents, _i. e._, they will be thrice as numerous. Hence, with three accents there will be nine syllables, with four accents, twelve syllables, and with seven accents, twenty-one syllables.

Lines of this sort may be called symmetrical.

-- 663. _Unsymmetrical metres._--Lines, where the syllables are _not_ a multiple of the accents, may be called unsymmetrical. Occasional specimens of such lines occur interspersed amongst others of symmetrical character.

Where this occurs the general character of the versification may be considered as symmetrical also.

The case, however, is different where the whole character of the versification is unsymmetrical, as it is in the greater part of Coleridge's Christabel, and Byron's Siege of Corinth. {518}

In the year since Jesus died for men, Eighteen hundred years and ten, We were a gallant compan, Riding o'er land and sailing o'er sea.

oh! but we went merril!

We forded the river, and clomb the high hill, Never our steeds for a day stood still.

Whether we lay in the cave or the shed, Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed; Whether we couch'd on our rough capote, Or the rougher plank of our gliding boat; Or stretch'd on the beach or our saddles spread As a pillow beneath the resting head, Fresh we woke upon the morrow.

all our thoughts and words had scope, We had health and we had hope, Toil and travel, but no sorrow.

-- 664. _Many_ (_perhaps all_) _cla.s.sical metres on a level with the unsymmetrical English ones_.--The following is the notation of the extract in the preceding section.

_x x a x a x a x a_ _a x a x a x a_ _a x x a x a x a_ _a x x a x a x x a_ _a x a x a x x_ _x a x x a x x a x x a_ _a x x a x x a x a_ _a x x a x x a x x a_ _x a x a x x a x a_ _a x x a x x a x a_ _x x a x a x x a x a_ _x a x x a x x a x a_ _x x a x x a x a x a_ _a x a x a x a x_ _a x a x a x a_ _a x a x a x a_ _a x a x a x a x_

Now many Latin metres present a recurrence of accent little more irregular than the quotation just a.n.a.lysed. The following is the accentual formula of the first two stanzas of the second ode of the first Book of Horace. {519}

_Accentual Formula of the Latin Sapphic._

_a a x a x | a x a x a x_ _a x x a x | a x a x a x_ _a x x a x | a x a x a x_ _ a x x a x_

_a x x a x | a x a x a x_ _a x x a x | a x a x a x_ _a x x a x | a x a x a x_ _ a x x a x_

_Latin Asclepiad._

_Horace, Od._ I. I., 1-6.

_ x a x a x x | a x x a x x_ _ a x x a x x | a x a x a x_ _ a x a x a x x | a x x a x x_ _ a x a x a x | a x x a x x_ _ a x a x a x | a x x a x x_ _ x a x a x x | a x x a x a x_

_Latin Hexameter._

_aen._ I., 1-5.

_a x x a x a x a x x a x x a x_ _x a x x a x a x x x a x x a x_ _a x x x a x a x x x a x x a x_ _x a x x a x a x x x a x x a x._

A longer list of examples would show us that, throughout the whole of the cla.s.sical metres the same accents recur, sometimes with less, and sometimes with but very little more irregularity than they recur in the _unsymmetrical_ metres of our own language.

-- 665. _Conversion of English into cla.s.sical metres._--In the preface to his Translation of Aristophanes, Mr. Walsh has shown (and, I believe, for the first time), that, by a different distribution of lines, very fair hexameters may be made out of the well-known lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore:--

Not a drum was Heard, not a funeral note as his corse to the rampart we hurried, Not a soldier dis- Charged his farewell shot o'er the grave where our hero we buried.

{520} We buried him Darkly at dead of night, the sods with our bayonets turning; By the struggling Moonbeams' misty light and the lantern dimly burning.

Lightly they'll Talk of the spirit that's gone, and o'er his cold ashes upbraid him, But little he'll Reck if they let him sleep on in the grave where a Briton has laid him.

-- 666. Again, such lines as Coleridge's--

1. Make ready my grave clothes to-morrow;

or Sh.e.l.ly's--

2. Liquid Peneus was flowing,

are the exact a.n.a.logues of lines like--

1. Jam lacte depulsum leonem,

and

2. Grato Prrha sub antro.

-- 667. The rationale of so remarkable a phaenomenon as _regularity of accent in verses considered to have been composed with a view to quant.i.ty only_ has yet to be investigated. That it was necessary to the structure of the metres in question is certain.

-- 668. _Caesura._--The _caesura_ of the cla.s.sical metrists is the result of--

1. The necessity in the cla.s.sical metres (as just indicated) of an accented syllable in certain parts of the verses.

2. The nearly total absence in the cla.s.sical languages of words with an accent on the last syllable.

From the joint effect of these two causes, it follows that in certain parts of a verse no final syllable can occur, or (changing the expression) no word can terminate.

Thus, in a language consisting chiefly of dissyllables, of which the first alone was accented, and in a metre which required the sixth syllable to be accented, the fifth and seventh would each be at end of words, and that simply because the sixth was not.