Of the breaking your bisillables and polysillables and when it is to be used. The Arte of English Poesie | ||
2.14. Of the breaking your bisillables and polysillables and when it is to be used.
Bvt whether ye suffer your sillable to receiue his quantitie by his accent, or by his ortography, or whether ye keepe your bisillable whose or whether ye breake him, all is one to his quantitie,
extreame desire
The first is a good spondeus, the second a good iambus, and if the same wordes be broken thus it is not so pleasant.
in ex treame de sire
And yet the first makes a iambus, and the second a trocheus ech sillable retayning still his former quantities. And alwaies ye must haue regard to the sweetenes of the meetre, so as if your word polysillable would not sound pleasantly whole, ye should for the nonce breake him, which ye may easily doo by inserting here and there one monosillable among your polysillables, or by chaunging your word into another place then where he soundes vnpleasantly, and by breaking, turne a trocheus to a iambus, or contrariwise: as thus:
Craggie cliffes bring foorth the fairest fountaines.
These verses be trockaik, and in mine eare not so sweete and harmonicall as the iambique, thus:
The craggist clifs bring forth the fairest fountaines.
All which verses bee now become iambicque by breaking the first bisillables, and yet alters not their quantities though the feete be altered: and thus,
Rauing after that reason doth denie.
Which being turned thus makes a new harmonie.
Ay rauing after that reason doth it deny.
And following this obseruation your meetres being builded with polysillables will fall diuersly out, that is some to be spondaick, some iambick, others dactilick, others trockaick, and of one mingled with another, as in this verse.
Heauie is the burden of Princes ire.The verse is trockaick, but being altered thus, is iambicque.
And as Sir Thomas Wiat song in a verse wholly trochaick, because the wordes do best shape to that foote by their naturall accent, thus,
And in this ditty of th'Erle of Surries, passing sweete and harmonicall: all be Iambick.
So cruelly doth straine my hart,
And that the teares like fluds of raine
Beare witnesse of my wofull smart.
Which beying disposed otherwise or not broken, would proue all trochaick, but nothing pleasant.
Now furthermore ye are to note, that al your monosyllables may receiue the sharp accent, but not so aptly one as another, as in this verse where they serue well to make him iambique, but not trochaick.
Where the sharpe accent falles more tunably vpon [graunt] [peace] [long] [dure] then it would by conuersion, as to accent them thus:
And yet if ye will aske me the reason, I can not tell it, but that it shapes so to myne eare, and as I thinke to euery other mans. And in this meeter where ye haue whole words bisillable vnbroken, that maintaine (by reason of their accent) sundry feete, yet going one with another be very harmonicall.
Where ye see one to be a trocheus another the iambus, and so entermingled not by election but by constraint of their seuerall accents, which ought not to be altred, yet comes it to passe that many times ye must of necessitie alter the accent of a sillable, and put him from his naturall place, and then one sillable, of a word polysillable, or one word monosillable, will abide to be made sometimes long, sometimes short, as in this quadreyne of ours playd in a mery moode.
Geue others theirs, and nothing that is mine
Then neither gold, nor faire women nor wine.
Where in your first these two words [giue] and [me] are accented one high th'other low, in the third verse the same words are accented contrary, and the reason of this exchange is manifest, because the maker playes with these two clauses of sundry relations [giue me] and [giue others] so as the monosillable [me] being respectiue to the word [others] and inferring a subtiltie or wittie implication, ought not to haue the same accent, as when he hath no such respect, as in this distik of ours.
Meeke minds should excuse not accuse.
In which verse ye see this word [reprooue] the sillable [prooue] alters his sharpe accent into a flat, for naturally it is long in all his singles and compoundes [reprooue] [approue] [disprooue] & so is the sillable [cuse] in [excuse] [accuse] [recuse] yet in these verses by reason one of them doth as it were nicke another, and haue a certaine extraordinary sence with all, it behoueth to remoue the sharpe accents from whence they are most naturall, to place them where the nicke may be more expresly discouered, and therefore in this verse where no such implication is, nor no relation it is otherwise, as thus.
I will excuse you curtesly.
For in this word [reprooue] because there is no extraordinary sence to be inferred, he keepeth his sharpe accent vpon the sillable [prooue] but in the former verses because they seeme to encounter ech other they do thereby merite an audible and pleasant alteration of their accents in those sillables that cause the subtiltie. Of these maner of nicetees ye shal finde in many places of our booke, but specially where we treate of ornament, vnto which we referre you, sauing that we thought good to set down one example more to solace your mindes with mirth after all these scholasticall preceptes, which can not but bring with them (specially to Courtiers) much tediousnesse, and so to end. In our Comedie intituled Ginecocratia: the king was supposed to be a person very amorous and effeminate, and therefore most ruled his ordinary affaires by the
Not money: nor many,
Nor any: but any,
Not weemen, but weemen beare the bell.
Of the breaking your bisillables and polysillables and when it is to be used. The Arte of English Poesie | ||