CLASSIC VERSIFICATION.
There is little doubt that the best and easiest way of learning English
grammar is through the Latin. That English versification cannot be
similarly acquired through the Latin is due to the fact that the Latin
system depends on quantity, and the English chiefly on accent and rhyme.
Nevertheless, a slight acquaintance with the classic measures will prove
useful to the student of English verse. In the absence of all teaching
of English versification at our schools, they have done good service in
giving our boys some insight into the structure of verse.
The structure of Latin and Greek verse depends on the quantity—the
length or shortness expressed by the forms — ᴗ. A long syllable is equal
in duration to two short syllables, which may therefore take its place
(as it may take theirs) in certain positions. The combinations of
syllables are called feet, of which there are about nine-and-twenty.
Twelve of the most common are here given:—
Spondee — —
Pyrrhic ᴗ ᴗ
Trochee — ᴗ
Iambus ᴗ —
Molossus — — —
Tribrach ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ
Dactyl — ᴗ ᴗ
Anapæst ᴗ ᴗ —
Bacchic ᴗ — —
Antibacchic — — ᴗ
Amphimacer — ᴗ —
Amphibrach ᴗ — ᴗ
Of the styles of verse produced by combinations of these feet the most
important are the Heroic, or Hexameter; the Elegiac, alternate
Hexameters and Pentameters; and the Dramatic or Iambic. All others may
be classed as Lyrics.
The Cæsura (division) is the separation of each verse into two parts by
the ending of a word in the middle of a certain foot.[5] It may be here
noted that this principle (the ending of a word in the middle of a foot)
applies generally to the verse, it being an inelegance to construct
lines of words of which each constitutes a foot. The well-known line of
Virgil, marked to show the feet, will explain this at a glance—
"Arma vi|rumque ca|no || Tro|jæ qui | primus ab | oris."
In this the cæsura occurs in the third foot, between _cano_ and _Trojæ_.
But in no case is one foot composed of one word only.
The Hexameter line consists of, practically, five dactyls and a spondee
or trochee. A spondee may take the place of each of the first four
dactyls—and sometimes, but very rarely, of the fifth. The cæsura falls
in the third foot at the end of the first—and sometimes at the end of
the second—syllable of the dactyl. In some cases it is in the fourth
foot, after the first syllable. The last word in the line should be
either a dissyllable or trisyllable.
The Pentameter is never used alone, but, with a Hexameter preceding it
in the distich, forms Elegiac Verse. It consists of two parts, divided
by a cæsura, each part composed of two dactyls (interchangeable with
spondees) and a long syllable.[6] The last place in the line should be
occupied by a dissyllabic word—at least it should not be a monosyllable
or trisyllable.
The Iambic is most commonly used in a six-foot line of iambics (the
trimeter iambic, _vide_ note on last paragraph). In the first, third,
and fifth place a spondee may be substituted, and there are other
licenses which we need not here enter upon, as the measure is not of
much importance for our purposes. The cæsura occurs in the third or
fourth foot.
The Lyrics are, as a rule, compound verses; different sorts of feet
enter into the formation of the lines; and the stanzas consist of lines
of different kinds, and are styled strophes.
The chief of the lyric measures are the Sapphic and Alcaic.
The Sapphic is a combination of three Sapphic verses with an Adonic.
Lines 1, 2, 3, — ᴗ | — — | — || ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ | — ᴗ | — —ᴗ
Line 4, — ᴗ ᴗ | — —
The double line represents the cæsura, which in rare instances falls a
syllable later.
The Alcaic is, like the Sapphic, a four-line stanza. Its scheme is—
Lines 1 and 2, —ᴗ — | ᴗ — | — || — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ —ᴗ
Line 3, —ᴗ — | ᴗ — | — — | ᴗ — | —ᴗ
Line 4, — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ | — —ᴗ
That is to say, it consists of two eleven-syllable, one nine-syllable,
and one ten-syllable Alcaic lines (Alcaici hendeka-, ennea-, and
deka-syllabici). Much of the success of the stanza depends on the flow
of the third line, which, according to the best models, should consist
of three trisyllables (or equivalent combinations, _e.g._ a dissyllable
noun with its monosyllabic preposition).
When it is stated that Horace wrote in four or five-and-twenty lyric
measures, it will be obvious that I cannot exhaust, or attempt to
exhaust, the list of measures in a work like this. The reader will have
acquired some notion of the nature of classic versification, from what I
have stated of Latin composition applying with unimportant differences
to Greek. Those who have the leisure or the inclination might do worse
than study Greek and Latin poetry, if only to see if they can suggest no
novelties of metre. I can recall no English verse that reproduces
Horace's musical measure:—
"Mĭsĕrār' est | nĕqu' ămōrī dărĕ lūdūm | nĕqŭe dūlcī
Mălă vīnō | lăvĕr' āut ēx|ănĭmārī | mĕtŭēntēs
Pătrŭǣ vēr| bĕră līnguǣ."
Greek verse seems a less promising field than Latin at a first glance.
But one of the choruses in Aristophanes's "Plutus" has an exact echo in
Engish verse.
"ἄνδρες φίλοι κὰι δημόται κὰι τοῦ πονεῖν ἐραστάι."
may fairly run in a curricle with
"A captain bold of Halifax who lived in country quarters."
The great difficulty of finding a corresponding measure in English for
Latin or Greek verse, on the accepted theory that the English acute
accent answers to the Latin long quantity, and the grave accent to the
short, will be found in the spondee. We have no means of replacing the
two longs in juxtaposition, and are compelled to find refuge in what,
according to the accent-quantity theory, is either an iamb or a trochee.
I subjoin the following attempts to render a few Latin metres,
commencing with a translation of the Horatian measure just alluded to:—
"Hapless lasses who in glasses may not drown those pangs of passion,
Or disclose its bitter woes, it's—so they tell you—not the fashion."
Yet this, in spite of the sub-rhymes which give the swing of the Ionicus
( ᴗ ᴗ — ´ — ) may well be read as a succession of trochees—that is to
say, according to the quantity-accent system.
Here is an attempt at the Sapphic:—
"Never—ah me—now, as in days aforetime
Rises o'erwhelming memory—'tis banish'd!
Scenes of loved childhood, cannot ye restore time,
Though it has vanish'd?"
The Alcaic measure is essayed in the following:—
"Ah woe! the men who gallantly sallying
Strode forth undaunted, rapidly rallying—
No longer advancing attack-ward,
Rush'd a disorderly tumult backward."
In these, again, the difficulty of exactly replacing quantity by accent
is great—if not insurmountable. Hence it is that, as a rule, the
attempts at giving the exact reproductions of Latin measures have
failed. Nevertheless I believe that corresponding measures, suitable to
the genius of our language, may be suggested by a study of the classics.
The often-quoted lines of Coleridge on the hexameter and pentameter
appear to me faulty:—
"In the hex|ameter | rises || the | fountain's | silvery | column—
In the pen|tameter | aye || falling in | melody | back."
The first feet of both lines are less dactyls than anapæsts. The cæsura
of the first line is not the "worthier" cæsura. In the second line the
monosyllable is inadmissible in the last place.
Here I may as well point out what seems to me to be a difficulty of
English versification which has given much trouble. The substitution of
accent for quantity is not all that is required to make the best verse.
Quantity enters into the consideration too. A combination of consonants,
giving an almost imperceptible weight to the vowel preceding them, goes
far to disqualify it for a place as an unaccented syllable. To my
thinking "rises a" would be a better English dactyl than "rises the,"
and "falls it in" than "falling in." But no agglomeration of consonants
can make such a syllable accented. Two lines from Coleridge's "Mahomet"
will evidence this—
"Huge wasteful | empires | founded and | hallowed | slow
perse|cution,
Soul-wither|ing but | crush'd the | blasphemous | rites of
the | Pagan."
"Huge wasteful" is not a dactyl, and "ing but" is certainly not a
spondee—nor is "crushed the." "Hallowed," by force of the broad "o," is
almost perfect as a spondee, on the other hand; as is "empires" also.
Longfellow, in his "Evangeline," has perhaps done the best that can be
done to give an exact rendering of the Latin hexameter; but Tennyson, in
portions of "Maud," has caught its spirit, and transfused it into an
English form. No poet, indeed, has done so much as the Laureate to
introduce new or revive old forms of versification, and enrich the
language with musical measure.
It may be well to note here that the classic poets did not forget the
use of the maxim which Pope expresses in the line—
"The sound must seem an echo to the sense."
In this they were greatly assisted by the use of the quantity, which
enabled them the more readily to give rapidity or weight to their lines.
Nothing could more admirably represent a horse's gallop than the beat of
the words—
"Quadrupedante putrem sonittu quatit ungula campum."
The unwieldiness of the Cyclops is splendidly shadowed in the line—
"Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum."
And again the beat of the Cyclopean hammers is well imitated in the
verse—
"Illi inter sese magnâ vi brachia tollunt."
Too much stress may easily be laid on this adornment, and some poets
have carried it to excess. But the beginner in verse will do well not to
overlook it.
* * * * *
NOTE.—The Poet Laureate, whose mastery of metre is remarkable, has
given us alcaics in his lines to Milton—
"Oh, mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
Oh, skill'd to sing of time and eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England—
Milton, a name to resound for ages."
I would especially commend to those whom these remarks have interested
in any way, the perusal, with a view to this particular object, of
"Father Prout's Reliques."
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