or catalectic trochaic. This form was followed largely, and, from Chaucer and Gower onwards, by most poets, except Spenser, till the time of Chatterton, Blake, and Coleridge in Christabel.
Side by side with it, however, a form embodying the special characteristic of the new English prosody— equivalent substitution—exhibits itself in full force in the mid-thirteenth-century Genesis and Exodus, as well as in other miscellaneous poems and in the romances. Here are specimens from Genesis and Exodus, 2367–2376:
Josep | gaf ilc | here twin|ne srud,
Benia|min most | he ma|de prud;
Fif we|den best | bar Ben|iamin
Thre hun|dred plates | of sil|ver fin,
Al|so fele | o|there | thor-til,
He bad | ben in | is fa|deres wil,
And x | asses | with se|mes fest;
Of all | Egyp|tes welth|e best
Gaf he | is brethe|re, with her|te blithe,
And bad | hem ra | pen hem hom | ward swithe.
And from Richard Cœur de Lion, 3261–3268:
Nay quod | Kyng Rich|ard, be God | my lord,
Ne schal | I ne|vyr with him | acord!
Ne hadde ne|vyr ben | lost A|cres toun
Ne had|de ben | through hys | tresoun.
Yiff he yil|de again | my fad|erys tresour
And Jeru|salem | with gret | honour,
Thenne | my wrath|e I hym | forgive
And ne|vyr ellys | whyl that | I live.
Here, it will be observed, the foot of three syllables—generally, if not always, an anapæst—and even, it would seem, that of one sometimes, are freely substituted for that of two, adding immensely to the variety, spirit, and freedom of the line. The first "ne hadde" is perhaps run together.
VIII. Early Middle English Period
The Romance-Six or "Rime Couée."
At an uncertain period in the thirteenth century this makes its appearance—no doubt directly imitated from the French, but probably also in part a derivative of the application of metrical tendency to the aboriginal line-couplet. Its French name[33] is not, to our eyes, appropriate—one would rather call it "waisted" or "waisted-and-tailed rhyme"; and as it is very largely (in fact, with the plain couplet predominantly) used in the English romances, "romance-six" as opposed to "ballad-four" seems a good name for it. It sometimes, however, extends to three, four, or even six sets of two eights and a six, and is found both plain and equivalenced, as thus:
The brid|des sing|e, it is | no nay,
The spar|hauk and | the pap|ejay,
that joy|e it was | to here.
The thrus|telcok made eek | his lay,
The wo|de dowv|e upon | the spray
She sang | ful loud|e and clere.
(Chaucer, Sir Thopas.)
As soon|e as the em|peroure yil|dyd the gast,
A prowd|e gar|son came | in haste,
Sir Syn|agote | hight he—
And broght | an hun|dred hel|mes bright
Of har|dy men | that cowd|e wel fight
Of felde | wolde ne|ver oon flee.
(Le Bone Florence of Rome, 778–783.)
The plain form, as Chaucer, of malice prepense, showed in the above, is particularly liable to sing-song effect.
IX. Early Middle English Period
Miscellaneous Stanzas.
(a) A very considerable number of these were introduced, sometimes no doubt by direct imitation of French or (as in the case of the "Burns-metre,"[34]) Provençal originals, sometimes by the ingenuity of the individual poet, working on the plastic material of the blended language, according to the new metrical foot-system. They all scan easily by this, as may be seen in a stanza of Tristrem, one of the Harleian Lyrics, and a "Burns stanza" from the York Plays; while anapæstic substitution, amounting to something like "triple time" as a whole, appears in the Hampolian extract.
The king | had a douh|ter dere,
That mai|den Y|sonde hight,
That gle | was lef | to here
And romaun|ce to rede | aright.
Sir Tram|tris hir | gan lere,
Tho, | with al | his might,
What al|le poin|tès were
To se | the sothe |in sight,
To say,
In Yr|lond nas | no knight,
With Y|sonde | durst play.
(Sir Tristrem, 1255–63.)
(Three-foot iambic with single-foot "bob." All final e's sounded or elided. One monosyllabic, and two or three trisyllabic, substitutions.)
Bytuen|e Mershe | ant A|veril
when spray bigin|neth to springe,
The lut|el foul | hath hi|re wyl
on hy|re lud | to synge;
Ich lib|be in | love-|longinge For sem | lokest | of al|le thynge, He may | me | blis|se bringe, icham | in hire | baundoun. An hen|dy hap | ichab|be y-hent, Ichot | from hevene | it is | me sent, From alle | wymmen | mi love | is lent ant lyht | on A|lysoun.
(Alison, Harleian MS. p. 27, ed. Wright.)
(From the other stanzas it appears that the middle quatrain should consist of three eights and a six, and that something has dropped—supplied now by carets. Otherwise the scheme is clear.)
Fro thaym | is lost[e] | both[e] game | and glee.
He bad|de that they | schuld mais|ters be
Over all[e] kenn[e] thing, | outy-taen | a tree
