OTTO JESPERSEN Notes on Metre - UMR 7023

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122 <strong>OTTO</strong> <strong>JESPERSEN</strong> 42 And as the souldiers bare dead bodies by, He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome coarse 45 Betwixt the wind and his nobility. Line 29. I in weak position, but in 30 and 31 in strong position (2) on account of the surroundings, 9. Similarly when strong (2) in line 30, but degree 1 in line 3 1. Line 31. Extreame with rhythmic stress on ex- on account of its position before a strongly stressed word (see A. Schmidt, Sh-Lex., II, p. 1413; my Modern English Grammar, 1,5. 53 f.; above 5). In the same way untaught line 43, but unmannerly and unhandsome with weak un. Line 32. Two examples of inversion, 13. Line 33. Which of the two words, Came there, is the stronger may be doubtful, 15. Neat an extra-metrical syllable, which is not felt as such on account of the pause, 22. _ Line 34. Beginning inversion according to 15. Groome 3, and 2, with pause between them, 19; new 3 between two 4's, 5. Line 35. Showed like inversion, 15. Line 36. Was 2, stronger than he and per-. Perfumed 141. This is the ordinary stressing of the verb; also in our times; but in Henry IV, B, III, 1, 12, we have rhythmic shifting 41 before 4: "Then in the perfum'd chambers of the great". Like 2, as in preceding line. . Line 3 7. First and 1, second and 2 between weak syllables, 6. The two following ands also 2; this is likewise the case with when in line 40. Line 41. Inversion, 17. Line 42. As 2, 6, but dead 3 or 2 between strong syllables, 5. Line 43. untaught, see above. Line 44. slovenly 412 or perhaps 413 before un-, 6. Line 45. his 2 or 3, probably not emphatic. 25 . We have not yet offered an answer to the question raised in 2: why is a trochee among iambs easier to tolerate than inversely an iamb among trochees? But the answer is not difficult on the principles we have followed throughout. Take some trochaic lines, e.g.: Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream and substitute for the second line something like A life's but an empty dream, J
- or <strong>Notes</strong> on Metre To live's but an empty dream. The rhythm is completely spoilt. Or try instead of to 'say Then the little Hiawatha Learned of every bird its language The sweet little Hiawatha Acquired every sound and language. (Every of course in two syllables as in Longfellow). In such cases with 14 instead of 41 we have the disagreeable clash of two strong syllables; further, we have two disappointments per line. It is true that if we pronounced the first strong syllable weaker than the second, thus made the whole 1341, we should have only one disappointment: a/b/a"-b instead of the regular a "- b / a "- b; but it will be extremely hard to find examples of the sequence 34 as regularly occurring in any of the cognate languages. We shall see in the next paragraph the reason why 34 is not found within one and the same word; and when a word of the formula 14 is placed . before a strongly stressed word, it is not generally reduced to 13, as the ordinary tendency in such cases is rather to substitute for it 31 or 21. See many examples from English in my Modern English Grammar, I, 156 ff.: "The other upon Saturn's bended neck" (Keats), "Protracted among endless solitudes" (Wordsworth), "a spirit without spot" (Shelley), "inlorlom servitude" (Wordsworth). For Danish examples, see Modersmctlets fonetik, p. 139. The disinclination to "invert" in trochaic rhythms is thus seen to be deeply rooted in linguistic habits and in the phonetic structure of our languages. 26. What is the essential difference between a risIng and a falling rhythm? (Or, in the old terms, between an "iambic" or "anapaestic" rhythm on the one hand and a "trochaic" or "dactylic" rhythm on the other?) Some writers minimize this difference and say that they are virtually identical, as the "anacrusis" has no real importance; instead of the sequence 14 14 14 ... (v -I v -I v -I ... ) they would write 1 41 41 41 ... , (v 1 - v 1 - v I. - ... ). According to them the initial weak syllable is just as unimportant as an up-beat (auftakt, mesure d'attaque) is in music. But is such an up-beat (a note before the first bar begins) really unimportant in music? I have taken a number of music books at random and counted the pieces in which such an up-beat occurs; I found that it was less frequent in pieces with a slow movement (largo, grave, adagio, andante) than in those 123
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OTTO JESPERSEN Notes on Metre - UMR 7023

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