The Rationale of Verse, Part II [pp. 673-682]

680 Tire Rationale of Verse. [NOVEMBER,
Student," into a jumble of trochees, spondees, and
dactyls.
It may be said, also, by some other people that
in the word decus, I have succeeded no better than
the books, in making the scansional agree with the
reading flow; and that decus was not pronounced
decus. I reply that there no doubt of the word
having been pronounced, in this case, decus. It
must be observed that the Latin case, or variation
of a noun in its terminating syllables, caused the
Romans-must have caused them to pay greater
attention to the termination of a noun than to its
commencement, or than we do to the terminations
of our nouns. The end of the Latin word established that relation of the word with other words,
which we establish by prepositions. Therefore, it
would seem infinitely less odd to them than it does
to us, to dwell at any time, for any slight purpose,
abnormally, on a terminating syllable. In verse
this license, scarcely a license, would be frequently
admitted. These ideas unlock the secret of such
lines as the
Litoreis ingens invelta sub ilicibus sus,
and the
Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus,
which I quoted, some time ago, while speaking of
rhyme.
As regards the prosodial elisions, such as that of
rem before 0, in pulverem Olympicum, it is really
difficult to understand how so dismally silly a notion could have entered the brain even of a pedant.
Were it demanded of me why the books cut off
one vowel before another, I might say-it is, perhaps, because the books think that, since a bad
reader is so apt to slide the one vowel into the
other at any rate, it is just as well to print them
ready-slided. But in the case of the terminating
m, which is the most readily pronounced of all consonants, (as the infantile mama will testify,) and
the most impossible to cheat the ear of by any system of sliding-in the case of the rrm, I should be
driven to reply that, to the best of my belief, the
prosodists did the thing, because they had a fancy
for doing it, and wished to see how funny it would
look after it was done. The thinking reader will
perceive that, from the great facility with which
em may be enunciated, it is admirably suited to
form one of the rapid short syllables in the bastard
dactyl (pulverem O)-but because the books had
no conception of a bastard dactyl, they knocked it
in the head at once-by cutting off its tail.
Let me now give a specimen of the true scansion of another Horatian measure; embodying an
instance of proper elision.
Integer I vitae I scelerisq,ie I purus |
2 2 3 3 3
2 2 3 3 3
Nec vene I natis [ gravidla sa gittis,
22 23 3
Fusce, pha | retra.
2 2
Here the regular recurrence of the bastard iambus,
gives great animation to the rhythm. The e before
the a in que arcu is, almost of sheer necessity, cut
off-that is to say, run into the a so as to preserve
the spondee. But even this license it would have
been better not to take.
Had I space, nothing would afford me greater
pleasure than to proceed with the scansion of all
the ancient rhythms, and to show how easily, by
the help of common sense, the intended music of
each and all can be rendered instantaneously apparent. But I have already overstepped my limits,
and must bring this paper to an end.
It will never do, however, to omit all mention of
the heroic hexameter.
I began the "processes" by a suggestion of the
spondee as the first step towards verse. But the
innate monotony of the spondee has caused its disappearance, as the basis of rhythm, from all modern poetry. We may say, indeed, that the French
heroic-the most wretchedly monotonous verse in
existence-is, to all intents and purposes, spondaic.
But it is not designedly spondaic-and if the French
were ever to examine it at all, they would no doubt
pronounce it iambic. It must be observed that the
French language is strangely peculiar in this
point-that it is without accentuation and consequently without verse. The genius of the people,
rather than the structure of the tongue, declares
that their words are, for the most part, enunciated
with an uniform dwelling on each syllable. For
example, we say "syllabification." A Frenchman
would say svl-la-bi-fi-ca-ti-on; dwelling on no one
of the syllables with any noticeable particularity.
here again I put an extreme case, in order to be
well understood; but the general fact is as I give
it-that comparatively, the French have no accentuation. And there can be nothing worth the name
of verse, without. Therefore, the French have no
verse worth the name-which is the fact, put in
sufficiently plain terms. Their iambic rhythm so
superabounds in absolute spondees as to warrant
me in calling its basis spondaic; but French is the
only modern tongue which has any rhythm with
such basis; and even in the French, it is, as I have
said, unintentional.
Admitting, however, the validity of my suggestion that the spondee was the first approach to verse,
we should expect to find, first, natural spondees,
(words each forming just a spondee,) most abundant
in the most ancient languages, and, secondly, we
should exoe't to find spondees forming the basis of
680
The Rationale of Verse.
[NovEMBER,