COMBINATION OF MORE THAN TWO MEtres.

Since the classical period it is the rule not to use more than two different measures in the same strophe, except in the case of the chanson, however, in which three (and sometimes four) different metres are often found mixed, as in the following strophe from Béranger, constructed according to the scheme a, b, a b c d d d dc8dg:

Trinquer est un plaisir fort sage
Qu'aujourd'hui l'on traite d'abus.
Quand du mépris d'un tel usage
Les gens du monde sont imbus,
De le suivre, amis, faisons gloire,
Riant de qui peut s'en moquer:
Et pour choquer,

Nous provoquer,

Le verre en main, en rond nous attaquer,
D'abord nous trinquerons pour boire,

Et puis nous boirons pour trinquer.

(Euvres Compl., i. p. 108.)

The above rule is not invariably observed in modern poetry, although the exceptions to it are very few:

Si, mauvais oiseleur, de ses caresses frêles

Il abaissait sur toi le délicat réseau,

Comme d'un seul petit coup d'ailes

S'affranchirait l'oiseau!

(Sully Prudhomme, Poésies, ii. p. 137.)

Or this seven-line strophe of Théodore de Banville, constructed according to the scheme abb

Aimons-nous et dormons

Sans songer au reste du monde !

Ni le flot de la mer, ni l'ouragan des monts,
Tant que nous nous aimons

Ne courbera ta tête blonde,
Car l'amour est plus fort

Que les dieux et la mort!

(Odelettes, p. 144.)

The rule was not infrequently broken by the poets of the sixteenth and those of the beginning of the seventeenth century:

Amour, tu n'es qu'une passion folle
D'une ame de loisir;

Qui sans raison la transporte et l'affolle
D'un excessif desir,

Qui vient sans peine
Prompte et soudaine;

Qui ne s'apaise
Qu'a grand malaise

Par mille ennuis pour un fraile plaisir.

(Baïf, Poes. Chois., p. 193.)

Romps tes fers bien qu'ils soient dorés.

Fuis les injustes adorés;

Et descends dans toi-même à l'exemple du sage.

Tu vois de près ta dernière saison:

Tout le monde connaît ton nom et ton visage;

Et tu n'es pas connu de ta propre raison. (Maynard'.)

In O.F. poetry no such rule obtained, and the strophes in which three (or more) measures are used are numberless :

D'amors ne doit estre honorés

Hon ki ne set bons devenir,
Ains doit estre à tel fuer menés
Ke dame ne le doit oïr.
Mais li felon plein de rage
Sèvent si bel de langage
Et lor mos polir,

C'on ne set choisir
Liquel ont loial courage.

(Gillibert de Berneville 2.)

1 Crépet, ii. p. 411.

2 Trouvères Belges, i. p. 82.

CHAPTER X

OF CERTAIN FIXED FORMS OF FRENCH

POETRY

I. THE SONNET.

Or all the poems with a fixed form none can compare in importance with the sonnet, which, taking into consideration the French sonnet only, can be briefly defined as a poem of fourteen lines composed of two quatrains, generally of identical structure, followed by two tercets. The sonnet is the only kind of poem with a fixed form which can escape the reproach of arbitrariness; nay, centuries of almost constant favour, not only in the Romance-speaking countries, but also in England, have demonstrated the inevitableness of its form as the fittest vehicle for the concise expression of an isolated poetic thought:

Ne ris point du sonnet, ô critique moqueur 1.
Par amour autrefois en fit le grand Shakespeare;
C'est sur ce luth heureux que Pétrarque soupire,
Et que le Tasse aux fers soulage un peu son cœur.
Camoëns de son exil abrège la longueur;
Car il chante en sonnets l'amour et son empire.
Dante aime cette fleur de myrte et la respire,
Et la mêle au cyprès qui ceint son front vainqueur.
Spenser, s'en revenant de l'île des féeries,
Exhale en longs sonnets ses tristesses chéries;
Milton, chantant les siens, ranimait son regard.

Moi je veux rajeunir le doux sonnet en France.
Du Bellay le premier l'apporta de Florence',
Et l'on en sait plus d'un de notre vieux Ronsard.

(Sainte-Beuve, Poésies Complètes, p. 124.)

1 For the most part this sonnet is a paraphrase of Wordsworth's Sonnet on the Sonnet.

2 Not strictly true. Cf. pp. 235-7.

The sonnet is of Italian origin, having evolved from the fusion of two strambotti, one of eight lines on the scheme abababab, and the other of six lines on the scheme cdcdcd, which, by being both divided into two equal parts, the second by analogy with the first, gave abab, abab, cdc, dcd. Subsequently there developed by the side of the above form the scheme abba, abba, cde, cde, and many variations for the two tercets which will be noticed hereafter 1. Some writers have wished to argue that the sonnet is of Provençal origin, but they have probably been led astray by the fact that the oldest imitations of the Italian sonnet were written in that language by two Italian poets-Dante da Majano and Paul Lanfranc de

3

This is the view of Biadene, Morfologia del sonetto nei sec. xiii e xiv, Roma, 1888, pp. 217-18. Other scholars prefer to trace the origin of the sonnet to a single fourteen-line canzone-strophe-a cobla esparsa, to use the Provençal term. Cf. T. Casini, Le forme metriche italiane, Firenze, 1890, p. 36.

2 A passage in the Vies des plus celebres et anciens poètes provensaux (Lyon, 1575) of Michel Nostredame, a brother of the famous astrologer, seems to be the source of this error. We see it crop up again in the Art Poétique of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (begun in 1574):

Et comme nos François les premiers en Provence
Du Sonnet amoureux chanterent l'excelence,

D'avant l'Italien, ils ont aussi chantez

Les Satyres

....

(Livre ii, 11. 715-18.)

The same mistake is found in some modern writers, e. g. Lubarsch, Verslehre, p. 410; while others, such as De Gramont, Prosodie, p. 248, and Aubertin, Versification française, p. 266, beat about the bush.

The fact that the word sonet occurs frequently in Provençal in the general sense of poem, song, although it is never used to designate any special poem with a fixed form, may have helped to lead some writers astray :

Quan vei pels vergiers despleiar
Los cendatz grocs, indis e blaus,
M'adoussa la votz de'ls chevaus
Elh sonet que fan li joglar.

(Bertran de Born, ed.3 Stimming, p. 83.)

3 The sonnet of Dante da Majano runs as follows (see Bartsch, Chrestomathie Provençale, p. 319):

Las, so que m'es al cor plus fins e cars,
ades vai de mi parten e loignan,

e la pena el trebail ai tot ses pars,
on montas vetz n'ai greu languir ploran.
Quel fis amors mi ten el cor uns dars
on eu cre quel partirs non er ses dan,
tro qu'a mi dons, ab los sieus gens parlars,
prenda merses del mal qu'eu trag tan gran.

Pistoja. The oldest Italian sonnet, and consequently the oldest in any language, was composed by Pier delle Vigne, Secretary of State to Frederick II of Sicily, about the year

1220:

Però ch' Amore non si può vedere,

E non si tratta corporalemente,
Manti ne son di sì folle sapére

Che credono ch' Amore sia niente!
Ma poi ch' Amore si face sentère
Dentro del cor signoreggiar la gente,
Molto maggiore pregio de' avere
Che se'l vedesse visibilemente.
Per la virtute della calamita

Como lo ferro attrae non si vede,
Ma si lo tira signorevolmente.
E questa cosa à credere m'invita

Che Amore sia, e dammi grande fede
Che tuttor sia creduto fra la Gente.

But the first principal writer of the sonnet was Fra Guittone d' Arezzo, who flourished about 1250, and who has left more than two hundred examples of this form of verse. He was followed by Dante, Petrarch, and a host of other poets.

Melin de Saint-Gelais and Clément Marot were the first French poets to introduce, and that simultaneously, the sonnet into France; at all events there is not sufficient evidence to give the priority to either. We possess about twenty sonnets of Melin de Saint-Gelais, and a dozen of Clément Marot (of which more than half are closely modelled on Petrarch). The following specimens, the first from Marot, and the second from Melin de Saint-Gelais, will show in how far they succeeded in their task:

Adolescens, qui la peine avez prise
De m'enrichir de los non merité,
Pour en louant dire bien verité,
Laissez-moy là, et louez moy Loïse.

C'est le doux feu dont ma Muse est esprise,
C'est de mes vers le droit but limité:

Haulsez la donc en toute extremité,

Car bien prisé me sens quand on la prise.

Leu fora sim volgues mi dons garir de la dolor qu'ai al cor tan soven, quar en lei es ma vida e mon morir.

Merse l'enquer a ma domna valen, que per merse deja mos precs coillir e perdon fassa al mieu gran ardimen.