CHAPTER VII

THE SO-CALLED POETIC LICENCES

I. The poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries occasionally take the liberty of omitting the final s in the first person singular of the present indicative of the noninchoative verbs of the second conjugation, and also of the verbs of the third and fourth conjugations:

Si Cléon pour ma fille a le goût que je croi;
Mais je ne puis penser qu'il parle mal de moi.

(Gresset, Le Méchant, Act iv. Sc. 3.)

Est-ce toi, Cléotas, toi, qu'ainsi je revoi?
Tout ici t'appartient. O mon père! est-ce toi?

(A. Chénier, Poésies, p. 47.)

Quittons ce sujet-ci, dit Mardoche, je voi
Que vous avez le crâne autrement fait que moi.

(A. de Musset, Prem. Poés., p. 124.)

Oh! mes amis sont morts! oh! je suis insensé !
Pardonne! je voudrais aimer, je ne le sai.

(V. Hugo, Hernani, Act iii. Sc. 5.)

Ils trouvent tout de suite? oh! cela va de soi,
Puisque c'est dans mon cœur, eux, que je les reçoi.

(Rostand, Cyrano, p. 127.)

Such forms are found quite commonly in the poetry of the Classicists:

Elvire, où sommes-nous? et qu'est-ce que je voi?
Rodrigue en ma maison! Rodrigue devant moi.

Hors de cour. Comme il saute!

-

(Corneille, Cid, 1. 851.)

Ho! Monsieur, je vous tien.

Au voleur! Au voleur! Ho! nous vous tenons bien.

(Racine, Plaideurs, 1. 65.)

Elle n'a fait ni pis ni mieux que moi.

... L'hôte reprit: C'est assez; je vous croi.

(La Fontaine, Œuvres, iv. p. 218.)

But with the poets of the seventeenth century they were not poetic licences introduced to facilitate rime, or generally

for the sake of convenience, as is sometimes erroneously stated, the forms without s being then used side by side with the forms with s in prose as well as in verse. According to the regular laws of phonology, Old French had s only in the first person singular of the present indicative of verbs that were inchoative or had an inchoative radical (finis, crois, conois, &c.), and in a few others the s of which belonged to the stem (puis, cous, &c.). In all other verbs the first person singular of the present indicative lacked S, and although the s began to spread by analogy as early as the thirteenth century, yet the regular and etymologically correct forms of O.F. were the rule in the Middle Period and still preponderated in the sixteenth century:

Quand je te voy seule assise à par toy.

(Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 17.) Ha! quel plaisir dans le cœur je reçoy! (Ibid. p. 39.)

although analogy forms are already fairly common at that

period:

Aussi je prens en gré toute ma passion.
Ou demander mercy du mal que je reçois.

(Ibid. p. 57.)

(Ibid. p. 58.)

II. The same may be said of the second person singular of the imperative, except that since the beginning of the nineteenth century the suppression of the s is not tolerated in that case:

Fais donner le signal, cours, ordonne et revien
Me délivrer d'un fâcheux entretien.

(Racine, Phèdre, 1. 579.)

La, la, revien.

Non, morbleu! je n'en ferai rien.

(Molière, Amphitryon, 1. 1434.)

Si je chante Camille, alors écoute, voi:

Les vers pour la chanter naissent autour de moi.

(A. Chénier, Poésies, p. 247.)

It results from this explanation that the term poetic licence can be fitly applied to these forms lacking s only when they occur in the poets of the eighteenth century and their

successors.

III. Archaic too are the few examples of the use of die (dicam) found in modern poets, since that form was replaced by dise at the end of the seventeenth century, after having existed alongside of it for some time:

Mais j'aime trop pour que je die
Qui j'ose aimer,

Et je veux mourir pour ma mie
Sans la nommer.

(A. de Musset, Poés. Nouv., p. 42.)

Enfin je l'aime. Il faut d'ailleurs que je vous die
Que je ne l'ai jamais vu qu'à la Comédie.

(Rostand, Cyrano, p. 80.)

IV. Old, and Middle French also, had an s only in the first person singular of the perfect of those verbs in which that letter was the result of a regular phonetic development, but analogy forms began to appear early in this case too, and all the first persons of the perfect had assumed the s by the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the sixteenth century both forms exist side by side:

Icy chanter, là pleurer je la vy.

(Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 15.)

Pour qui je fus trois ans en servage à Bourgueil.

(Ibid. p. 60.)

V. Conjointly with -ois (-oys) and -erois (-eroys) of the first person singular of the imperfect indicative and present conditional, the endings -oi (-oy) and -eroi (-eroy) were likewise current in the sixteenth century, as also the etymologically correct -oie (-oye), -eroie (-eroye), the latter more especially in the Picard dialect. The first two were the usual prose forms, but poetry admitted also the third form, which was not unknown to prose. Ronsard says in the Art Poétique: Tu ne rejetteras point les vieux verbes Picards, comme droye' pour voudroy,' aimeroye,' 'diroye,' 'feroye'; car plus nous aurons de mots en nostre langue, plus elle sera parfaicte, et donnera moins de peine à celui qui voudra pour passe-temps s'y employer1. Since the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, -ois and -erois have been exclusively used, with change of spelling to correspond to the change in pronunciation.

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VI. A real poetic licence in the sixteenth century is the occasional omission of the s of the second person singular of the present indicative or present subjunctive:

Maintenant le vivre me fasche:

Et à fin, Magny, que tu sçache .

(Du Bellay, Euvres Choisies, p. 292.)

1 Œuvres, vii. p. 333.

Quoy! des astres la compaigne
Tu dédaigne.

(Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 351.)

Tu vois et remedie aux malheurs de la France.

(A. d'Aubigné, Misères, 1. 598.)

This licence was severely blamed by Malherbe in more than one passage1 of his Commentary on the poems of Desportes, who seems to have been especially fond of this abridged form. On page 456 he says of the line:

Tu pense' éveiller nos esprits

Il faut dire: tu penses; et n'y a point de réponse. The earliest theorist of the seventeenth century, Deimier, who generally agrees with Malherbe, was of a different opinion: On dit tu pense' et 'tu penses'. ..comme de mesme tu donne' et tu donnes'... comme aussi en tout autre terme de pareille nature2-—but nevertheless Malherbe's view prevailed3.

VII. The poets of the sixteenth century also frequently omitted the final e of the first person singular of the present indicative of the first regular conjugation when that e was preceded by a vowel:

Je vous supply, ne me dédaignez pas.

(Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 8.) Mais je te pri', dy-moi, est-ce point le dieu Mars?

O grand Agamemnon, je vous supply, voyez
En quel malheur je suis.

(Ibid. p. 29.)

(Garnier, Troade, 1. 1213.)

In this case they were using the etymologically correct forms which were the rule in Old French, the e of the modern forms being due to the analogy of the second and third persons.

1 Euvres, pp. 265, 273, 283, &c.

2 L'Académie de l'Art Poëtique (1610), p. 181.

3 The few isolated examples of the suppression of the s of the second person singular, such as the following, which occurs in modern poets, are not to be regarded as a continuation of this licence, but as due to negligence:

Que tu ne puisse encor sur ton levier terrible

Soulever l'univers. (A. de Musset, Prem. Poés., p. 229.) On the other hand, the practice of eliding e over s was not unknown to O.F. poets:

Gaufrei ont fet avant a dis mil homme(s) aler.

VIII. Modern poets are free to use the archaic forms of certain adverbs and prepositions. Thus, for the usual prose-forms certes, encore, jusque, grace, guère, naguère, they can substitute certe, encor, jusques, grâces, guères, and naguères:

Le sang du doux mûrier ne jaillit point encor.

(A. Chénier, Poésies, p. 90.) C'est juger par des bruits de pédants, de commères. Non, par la voix publique: elle ne trompe guères.

(Gresset, Le Méchant, Act iii. Sc. 6.)

Car jusques à la mort nous espérons toujours. (Ibid. Sc. 10.)
Dirai-je qu'ils perdaient? Hélas! ce n'était guères.

(A. de Musset, Poés. Nouv., p. 32.)

Où sont les abandons, les gaîtés de naguères?

(Sully-Prudhomme, Poésies, ii. p. 196.)

Parle; mon art est grand: te faut-il plus encor?

(Gautier, Poésies Complètes, i. p. 18.)

(Ibid. p. 38.)

Tu regrettais encor la forêt solitaire.
Ces beaux fils, ces dandys qui l'enchantaient naguères.

Certe, on n'en trouverait pas un qui méprisât
Final, donjon splendide et riche marquisat.

(Ibid. p. 155.)

(V. Hugo, Légende des Siècles, ii. p. 170.)

The only one of these archaic words to occur frequently is encor.

Whenever these forms occur prior to the end of the seventeenth century they are not to be considered as poetic licences, but as parallel forms which were legitimate in prose as well as in verse. It is a peculiarity of Old French that many adverbs occur under two or even three forms, according as they are accented or unaccented, or receive the so-called adverbial s (e.g. or, ore, ores). These different forms were still commonly used in the sixteenth century: Tu diras selon la contrainte de ton vers, or, ore,' 'ores,' 'adoncq, 'adoncque,' 'adoncques,' avecq, avecques, et mille autres, que sans crainte tu trancheras et allongeras ainsi qu'il te plaira1:

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Et, ore que je deusse estre exempt de harnois.

(Ronsard, Poes. Chois., p. 60.) (Ibid. p. 36.)

Ores il court le long d'un beau rivage.

1 Ronsard, Art Poétique, Euvres, vii. p. 333.