C'est le desbaucheur des malings espritz, (Euvres, i. p. 169.) It was so completely forgotten that, when the Abbé Desmarais used it again at the end of the seventeenth century in an epistle, he was under the impression that he was the inventor of a new measure. He, too, found no imitators, and it was not till the nineteenth century that the division 5+5 was firmly established, although it still remains the exception and is almost wholly confined to short elegiac pieces, having the same advantage for such poems as the regular classical Alexandrine. 5. Besides these two kinds of decasyllabic lines, a third variety is occasionally found in a few O. F. poems, with the cesura after the sixth syllable (6+4). This division occurs here and there in O. F. lyric poetry, in parts of the Jeu de Saint-Nicolas of Jehan Bodel, and also in about a third (4,000 lines) of the chanson de geste of Aiol et Mirabel: François sont orgellous, | demesure, Laidengier le vauront | et ramproner, Il nel poroit soufrir | ne endurer, Tost respondroit folie, | car petit set, Si l'aroient li Franc | tost afolet, &c. (11. 147 sqq.) Of classical modern poets Voltaire is the only one to have applied this treatment of the decasyllabic line. It occurs in his comedies mixed with the ordinary 4+6: Nous en sommes fort près, | et notre gloire Il ne repose point, | car je l'entends. (La Prude, Act i. Sc. 3.) Since then it has been totally abandoned 1. (Ibid. Act iii. Sc. 4.) The other lines that have a cesura are of comparatively rare occurrence. 1 Ephraïm Mikhaël (1866–90) has shown that French poets were wrong to completely shun this division of the decasyllabic line: C'est un soir de silence | et de deuil tendre; (Quoted by Le Goffic et Thieulin, p. 88.) 6. The line of eleven syllables has generally been used with the cesura after the fifth syllable (5+6): Enfin, faites tant | et si souvent l'aumône Qu'à ce doux travail | ardemment occupé, Quand vous vieillirez, | tout vieillit, Dieu l'ordonne, (Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, Poésies, ii. p. 62.) Les sylphes légers | s'en vont dans la nuit brune (Théodore de Banville, Petit Traité, p. 17.) Soyons deux enfants, | soyons deux jeunes filles (Verlaine, Choix de Poésies, p. 118.) The hendecasyllabic line was also divided in this way by those poets of the Renaissance who strove to compose Sapphic odes and only succeeded in writing ordinary French lines of eleven syllables1: Que j'estois heureux | en ma jeune saison, Bien loin de souspirs, | de pleurs et de prison, Libre je vivoy. (Ronsard, Euvres, ii. p. 376.) A few modern poets have experimented with the division 6+5: O marinier joli, je veux passer l'onde; Je veux voir avec toi | les pays chantants Où les beaux amoureux sont toujours constants. (Jean Richepin, La Mer, p. 226.) Other modern poets, principally Verlaine, have introduced a double cesura in this kind of line-one after the third, and the other after the seventh syllable (3+4+4). This seems the best division of the hendecasyllabic line : La tristesse, la langueur | du corps humain Ah! surtout quand des sommeils | noirs le foudroient, (Verlaine, Sagesse, p. 110.) 1 See chap. xi. p. 298. Verlaine also presents other examples of ternary divisions of this line: Et la bonté qui s'en allait | de ces choses (Choix de Poésies, p. 260.) The hendecasyllabic line is occasionally found in O. F. with the cesura after the seventh syllable (7+4), as in these verses of Richard de Semilly: Vers li me tres, si li dis | 'suer, dites moi, (Bartsch, Rom. und Past., p. 8o.) 7. In the line of nine syllables the cesura is generally placed after the third or fifth syllable (3+6 or 5+4): Et mon âme et mon cœur en délires (Verlaine, Choix de Poésies, p. 115.) The division 5+4 is more frequent: Mais l'ombre toujours | entend frémir (Théodore de Banville, Cariatides, p. 49.) Moi je vous ai vus, | vierges rivages Où chantent des choeurs d'oiseaux sauvages, Où rêve l'oubli | qu'endort la paix. (Jean Richepin, La Mer, p. 261.) The cesura is sometimes placed after the fourth syllable (4+5), as in these lines of Fernand Gregh: Ne pleure pas, | ô ma triste enfant, Que nos baisers | nous soient comme un chant, Un chant léger | qui berce la nuit, Qui bercera notre sombre ennui. (La Maison de l'Enfance, p. 48.) This division is found combined with 3+6 in a song of Sus debout | la merveille des belles, (Euvres, i. p. 226.) The most effective division of the line of nine syllables is the one which separates it into three equal parts by the use of a double cesura: La Musique aujourd'hui | pourrait dire Un refrain au retour | monotone Un arpège éploré | qui s'étonne. (Fernand Gregh, La Maison de l'Enfance, p. 145.) The ternary division is also occasionally found in O. F. lyric poetry: Je ne sai dont li maus | vient que j'ai, Mais ades loiaument | amerai. (Bartsch, Rom. und Past., p. 82.) Still scarcer than the lines of eleven and nine syllables are those lines with a number of syllables exceeding that of the Alexandrine. 8. The line of thirteen syllables is very rare in O. F. In the seventeenth century it is found in a bacchic song of the burlesque poet Scarron with the cesura after the fifth syllable (5+8): Sobres, loin d'ici, | loin d'ici, buveurs d'eau bouillie; But it was not till the late nineteenth century that this measure was really tested. Théodore de Banville affords one or two examples of it, also with the cesura after the fifth syllable: Le tigre indien, | le lynx, les panthères tachées, 1 Quoted by Quicherat, p. 547. Les chèvres des monts, | que, réjouis par de doux vins, (Petit Traité, p. 18.) The second parts of these lines seem to drag somewhat, and, as if conscious of this, Richepin tried the division 6+7: Dans l'ombre autour de moi | vibrent des frissons d'amour, The Décadents and Symbolistes have used varying cesuras in the same piece, not infrequently with good effect, as Verlaine in the following stanzas in which the ternary division preponderates: Simplement, comme on verse un parfum | sur une flamme (Choix de Poésies, p. 276.) The few modern poets who have attempted the line of fourteen syllables have generally placed the cesura after the sixth syllable (6+8): Aussi la créature | était par trop toujours la même, Qui donnait ses baisers comme un enfant donne des noix; De la cire à moustache | et de l'empois de faux cols droits. The least inharmonious division of this line is the ternary division with the first cesura after the fourth syllable and the second after the eighth (4+4+6), preferably with feminine ending. This treatment of the line was invariably followed by the few O. F. poets who used this measure: Mahom reni, k'en enfer trait, | ki lui sert et honure; 1 Quoted by Tobler, p. 127. |