Quelqu'un chantonne au fond de la cour Isolated isometric strophes of are generally known as distiches. tions, epitaphs, and epigrams: Chloé, belle et poëte, a deux petits travers: Ci-gît Piron, qui ne fut rien, Pas même académicien. (Écouchard Lebrun 1.) STROPHE OF THREE LINES. (Piron 2.) For the tercet to constitute a real strophe, it is necessary that the three rimes of each tercet should be identical. Such strophes, which have since been known as ternaires, appear to have been first used by the Breton poet Auguste Brizeux (1803-55), with whom they were a favourite form. It will be noticed that the strophes are alternately on masculine and feminine rimes : Oui, si j'avais un fils, cher et pieux trésor, Je l'instruirais aussi, lorsque ses cheveux d'or Ce peu que j'ai, du moins j'en veux faire largesse. Si ceux qui m'ont connu sont devenus meilleurs. Rythme bardique éclos au fond du sanctuaire, (La Fleur d'Or, p. 161.) Subsequently these vers ternaires were taken up by Théodore de Banville in avowed imitation of Brizeux. 1 Crépet, iii. p. 342. 2 Ibid. p. 182. 3 Such at all events is Brizeux's claim. Cf. Euvres, ii. p. 248: Le premier je chantai sur le rythme ternaire. 4 See Les Cariatides, pp. 189 and 192. Some of the Symbolists have also left specimens of this kind of strophe: J'ai rêvé que ces vers seraient comme ces fleurs Je voudrais, à mon tour, comme les bons orfèvres, Those combinations of three verses which present two similar rimes and one verse riming with another verse of the next group of three lines are not properly strophes, for then there is an encroachment on one of the combinations proper to the six-line strophe. An exception, however, is the so-called terza rima, also known as rime tierce or tiercée in French, of which the object is to link together a succession of strophes so as to form a whole, while observing a partial or complete pause at the end of each tercet. The scheme of the terza rima is as follows: the first line of each strophe rimes with the third, while the rime of the middle line serves for the first and third line of the following strophe. The series of strophes, the number of which is not fixed, closes with one of four lines, the fourth line of which takes up the middle line of the last terza rima (aba, bcb, cdc, ded ... xyx, yzyz). The terza rima was probably invented by Dante, who used it in the Divina Commedia. It is also the metre of Petrarch's Trionfi, becoming subsequently the recognized metrical form for longer narrative poems, and has likewise been particularly affected by successive Italian satiric poets, notably by Ariosto, Aretino, Copetta, Caporali, Paterno, Salvator Rosa, and Menzini. The first French poet to introduce this form was Jean Lemaire de Belges, who utilized it in part of the Temple d'Honneur et de Vertus (1503) and of La Concorde des deux Langages (1511), and also in the first of the three Contes de Cupido et d'Atropos, translated from the Italian of Serafino Aquilano (1446-1500). Lemaire himself lays claim to the innovation in the Prologue to the Concorde: La premiere (partie) contiendra la description du temple de Venus, selon la mode poëtique. Et sera rhythmée de vers tiercets, à la façon Italienne ou Toscane, et Florentine: Ce que nul autre de nostre langue Gallicane ha encores attenté d'ensuivre, au moins que je sache1. Leaving out of consideration one or two translations from Italian, there is no reason to dispute Lemaire's claim to priority, especially as we find it clearly corroborated in the following passage of an anonymous Art Poétique composed in the year 1524 or 1525: Autre taille et façon de ryme nommée vers tiercez, qui a nostre langue est bien nouvelle, de laquelle n'ay encores (vu) aulcun user, sinon iceluy feu le Maire, qui en a fait et composé le Temple de Venus 2. The opening lines of Lemaire's Concorde are quoted: En la verdeur du mien florissant aage, D'amours servir me voulus entremettre : Le bon Petrarque, en amours le vrai maistre. Que bien pensoye en avoir apparence, ... (Euvres, iii. p. 102.) It will be noticed that Lemaire de Belges made use of the decasyllabic line and of feminine rimes exclusively in this specimen, probably with the idea of reproducing exactly the Italian endecasillabo, but he was not consistent in this respect, and many passages of his terze rime show masculine as well as feminine rimes. 3 4 The example of Lemaire de Belges was followed by Hugues Salel (1504-53) and Mellin de Saint Gelais (14871558), both of whom have left a few examples of this form, entitled chapitres, in imitation of Italian terminology, according to which a series of terze rime was commonly known as capitolo. In the second half of the sixteenth century rimes tierces 1 Euvres, iii. p. 101. 2 E. Langlois : De Artibus Rhetoricae Rhythmicae, pp. 85-6. 3 Les Amours d'Olivier de Magny Quercinois et quelques Odes de luy. Ensemble un recueil d'aucunes œuvres de Monsieur Salel... non encore vues. Paris, 1553, p. 64. 4 Euvres, p. 182 sqq. were composed by Pontus de Tyard', Jodelle 2, Baïf3, and Desportes. They also invariably made use of the decasyllabic line, and allowed themselves slight irregularities in the disposition of the rimes of the last strophe (a b b a or abcc instead of a ba b)-with the exception of Jodelle, who, though he, too, sinned in this last respect, adopted the Alexandrine, with masculine and feminine rimes alternating regularly in the third line of each strophe, as in the verses A sa Muse, which moreover present the correct arrangement in the four closing lines: Tu sçais, ô vaine Muse, ô Muse solitaire Maintenant avec moy, que ton chant qui n'a rien Pour elle seule doncq' je me veux employer, Me deussé-je noyer moy mesme dans mon fleuve This is the form which has been chosen by those poets of the nineteenth century who have revived the terza rima. Of these, the two who have excelled most in the handling of this Italian metre are Théophile Gautier (Le Triomphe de Pétrarque especially, Terza Rima, A Zurbaran, &c.) and Leconte de Lisle, who has used it nine times in the Poèmes Barbares alone (La Vision de Snorr, Le Barde de Temrah, In Excelsis, La Téte du Comte, &c.): Quand Michel-Ange eut peint la chapelle Sixtine, Et que de l'échafaud, sublime et radieux, Il fut redescendu dans la cité latine, Il ne pouvait baisser ni les bras ni les yeux, Ses pieds ne savaient pas comment marcher sur terre; 1 Euvres, ed. Marty-Laveaux, p. 174. 3 Euvres, ed. Marty-Laveaux, ii. pp. 25, 30, 37, and 186. 3 Poésies Choisies, p. 152. Euvres, p. 83. Becq de Fouquières, Contemporains de Ronsard, p. 174. Trois grands mois il garda cette attitude austère, Buttent à chaque pas sur les chemins du monde ; Penchent leur front sur eux et leur tendent les bras, S'attache à leur personne et leur dore le front, Avant que leurs regards et leurs bras ne s'abaissent, Revole, et ce ne sont que leurs corps qu'ils nous laissent. Notre jour leur paraît plus sombre que la nuit; Leur œil cherche toujours le ciel bleu de la fresque, Et le tableau quitté les tourmente et les suit. Comme Buonarotti, le peintre gigantesque, Ils ne peuvent plus voir que les choses d'en haut, (Th. Gautier, Terza Rima, Poés. Compl., i. p. 307.) The following specimen from Leconte de Lisle, entitled In Excelsis, is one of the best of the shorter poems in that metre: Mieux que l'aigle chasseur, familier de la nue, Homme! monte par bonds dans l'air resplendissant. Monte, monte et perds-toi dans la nuit éternelle : |