The Arte of English Poesie Part 11

Where ye see a third person supplie himselfe and a first person. And thus, _Madame ye neuer shewed your selfe vntrue, Nor my deserts would euer suffer you._

Viz. to show. Where ye see the moode Indicatiue supply him selfe and an Infinitiue. And the like in these other.

_I neuer yet failde you in constancie, Nor neuer doo intend vntill I die._

Viz. [_to show_.] Thus much for the congruitie, now for the sence. One wrote thus of a young man, who slew a villaine that had killed his father, and rauished his mother.

_Thus valiantly and with a manly minde, And by one feate of euerlasting fame, This l.u.s.tie lad fully requited kinde, His fathers death, and eke his mothers shame._

Where ye see this word [_requite_] serue a double sence: that is to say, to reuenge, and to satisfie. For the parents iniurie was reuenged, and the duetie of nature performed or satisfied by the childe.

[Sidenote: _Hypozeuxis_, or the Subst.i.tute.]

But if this supplie be made to sundrie clauses, or to one clause sundrie times iterated, and by seuerall words, so as euery clause hath his owne supplie: then is it called by the Greekes _Hypozeuxis_, we call him the subst.i.tute after his originall, and is a supplie with iteration, as thus: _Vnto the king she went, and to the king she said, Mine owne liege Lord behold thy poore handmaid._

Here [_went to the king_] and [_said to the king_] be but one clause iterated with words of sundrie supply. Or as in these verses following.

_My Ladie gaue me, my Lady wist not what, Geuing me leaue to be her Soueraine: For by such gift my Ladie hath done that, Which whilest she liues she may not call againe._

Here [_my Ladie gaue_] and [_my Ladie wist_] be supplies with iteration, by vertue of this figure.

Ye haue another _auricular_ figure of defect, and is when we begin to speake a thing, and breake of in the middle way, as if either it needed no further to be spoken of, or that we were ashamed, or afraide to speake it it out. It is also sometimes done by way of threatning, and to shew a moderation of anger. The Greekes call him _Aposiopesis._ I, the figure of silence, or of interruption, indifferently.

[Sidenote: _Aposiopesis_, or the Figure of silence.]

If we doo interrupt our speech for feare, this may be an example, where as one durst not make the true report as it was, but staid halfe way for feare of offence, thus: _He said you were, I dare not tell you plaine For words once out, neuer returne againe._

If it be for shame, or that the speaker suppose it would be indecent to tell all, then thus: as he that said to his sweete hart, whom he checked for secretly whispering with a suspected person.

_And did ye not come by his chamber dore?

And tell him that: goe to, I say no more._

If it be for anger or by way of manace or to show a moderation of wrath as the graue and discreeter sort of men do, then thus.

_If I take you with such another cast I sweare by G.o.d, but let this be the last._

Thinking to haue said further viz. I will punish you.

If it be for none of all these causes but vpon some sodaine occasion that moues a man to breake of his tale, then thus.

_He told me all at large: lo yonder is the man Let himselfe tell the tale that best tell can._

This figure is fit for phantasticall heads and such as be sodaine or lacke memorie. I know one of good learning that greatly blemisheth his discretion with this maner of speach: for if he be in the grauest matter of the world talking, he will vpon the sodaine for the flying of a bird ouerthwart the way, or some other such sleight cause, interrupt his tale and neuer returne to it againe.

[Sidenote: _Prolepsis_, or the Propounder.]

Ye haue yet another maner of speach purporting at the first blush a defect which afterward is supplied the, Greekes call him _Prolepsis_, we the Propounder, or the Explaner which ye will: because he workes both effectes, as thus, where in certaine verses we describe the triumphant enter-view of two great Princesses thus.

_These two great Queenes, came marching hand in hand, Vunto the hall, where store of Princes stand: And people of all countreys to behold, Coronis all clad, in purple cloth of gold: Celiar in robes, of siluer tissew white With rich rubies, and pearles all bedighte._

Here ye see the first proposition in a sort defectiue and of imperfect sence, till ye come by diuision to explane and enlarge it, but if we should follow the originall right, we ought rather to call him the forestaller, for like as he that standes in the market way, and takes all vp before it come to the market in grosse and sells it by retaile, so by this maner of speach our maker setts down before all the matter by a brief proposition, and afterward explanes it by a diuision more particularly.

By this other example it appeares also.

_Then deare Lady I pray you let it bee, That our long loue may lead us to agree: Me since I may not wed you to my wife, To serue you as a mistresse all my life: Ye that may not me for your husband haue, To clayme me for your seruant and your slaue._

_CHAP. XIII._

_Of your figures Auricular working by disorder._

[Sidenote: _Hiperbaton_, or the Trespa.s.ser.]

To all of speaches which wrought by disorder by the Greekes gaue a general name [_Hiperbaton_] as much to say as the [_trespa.s.ser_] and because such disorder may be committed many wayes it receiueth sundry particulars vnder him, whereof some are onely proper to the Greekes and Latines and not to vs, other some ordinarie in our maner of speaches, but so foule and intollerable as I will not seeme to place them among the figures, but do raunge them as they deserue among the vicious or faultie speaches.

[Sidenote: _Parenthesis_, or the Insertour]

Your first figure of tollerable disorder is [_Parenthesis_] or by an English name the [_Insertour_] and is when ye will seeme for larger information or some other purpose, to peece or graffe in the middest of your tale an vnnecessary parcell of speach, which neuerthelesse may be thence without any detriment to the rest. The figure is so common that it needeth none example, neuerthelesse because we are to teache Ladies and Gentlewomen to know their schoole points and termes appertaining to the Art, we may not refuse ro yeeld examples euen in the plainest cases, as that of maister _Diars_ very aptly.

_But now my Deere_ (_for so my loue makes me to call you still_) _That loue I say, that lucklesse loue, that works me all this ill._

Also in our Eglogue int.i.tuled _Elpine_, which we made being but eightene yeares old, to king _Edward_ the sixt a Prince of great hope, we surmised that the Pilot of a s.h.i.+p answering the King, being inquisitiue and desirous to know all the parts of the s.h.i.+p and tackle, what they were, & to what vse they serued, vsing this insertion or Parenthesis.

_Soueraigne Lord (for why a greater name To one on earth no mortall tongue can frame No statelie stile can giue the practisd penne: To one on earth conuersant among men.)_

And so proceedes to answere the kings question?

_The s.h.i.+ppe thou seest sayling in sea so large, &c._

This insertion is very long and vtterly impertinent to the princ.i.p.all matter, and makes a great gappe in the tale, neuerthelesse is no disgrace but rather a bewtie and to very good purpose, but you must not vse such insertions often nor to thick, nor those that bee very long as this of ours, for it will breede great confusion to haue the tale so much interrupted.

[Sidenote: _Histeron proteron_, or the Preposterous.]

Ye haue another manner of disordered speach, when ye misplace your words or clauses and set that before which should be behind, _& e conuerso_, we call it in English prouerbe, the cart before the horse, the Greeks call it _Histeron proteron_, we name it the Preposterous, and if it be not too much vsed is tollerable inough, and many times sca.r.s.e perceiueable, vnlesse the sence be thereby made very absurd: as he that described his manner of departure from his mistresse, said thus not much to be misliked.

_I kist her cherry lip and tooke my leaue_:

For I tooke my leaue and kist her: And yet I cannot well say whether a man vse to kisse before hee take his leaue, or take his leaue before he kisse, or that it be all one busines. It seemes the taking leaue is by vsing some speach, intreating licence of departure: the kisse a knitting vp of the farewell, and as it were a testimoniall of the licence without which here in England one may not presume of courtesie to depart, let yong Courtiers decide this controuersie. One describing his landing vpon a strange coast, sayd thus preposterously.

_When we had climbde the clifs, and were a sh.o.r.e_,

Whereas he should haue said by good order.

_When we were come ash.o.r.e and clymed had the cliffs_

For one must be on land ere he can clime. And as another said: _My dame that bred me up and bare me in her wombe_.

Whereas the bearing is before the bringing vp. All your other figures of disorder because they rather seeme deformities then bewties of language, for so many of them as be notoriously vndecent, and make no good harmony, I place them in the Chapter of vices hereafter following.

_CHAP. XIIII._

_Of your figures Auricular that worke by Surplusage_.

Your figures _auricular_ that worke by surplusage, such of them as be materiall and of importaunce to the sence or bewtie of your language, I referre them to the harmonicall speaches oratours among the figures rhetoricall, as be those of repet.i.tion, and iteration or amplification.

All other sorts of surplusage, I accompt rather vicious then figuratiue, & therefore not melodious as shalbe remembred in the chapter of viciosities or faultie speaches.

_CHAP. XV._

_Of auricular figures working by exchange._