aimerai : degré abhorré: honorai (Richepin.) (de Banville.) VII. Diphthongs can perfectly well be made to rime with the simple vowels which correspond to their second elementie: é, ui: i, &c.: Un juge, l'an passé, me prit à son service; (Racine, Plaideurs, 1. 4.) Enfin qu'il me renvoie, ou bien qu'il vous le livre. (Id., Andromaque, 1. 590.) La licence rimer alors n'eut plus de frein; (Boileau, Art Poét., Canto i. 1. 85.) (A. de Musset, Prem. Poés., p. 149.) Ce que j'écris est bon pour les buveurs de bière Qui jettent la bouteille après le premier verre. (Ibid., p. 137.) Sans peser, sans rester, ne demandant aux dieux (V. Hugo, Contemplations, p. 39.) VIII. Diphthongs can also be coupled with the corresponding dissyllabic combinations of the same vowel, naturally without the latter ceasing to be dissyllabic: Je ne vous ferai point ce reproche odi-eux, Que si vous aimiez bien, vous conseilleriez mieux. (Corneille, Edipe, 1. 91.) Je te fis prisonnier pour te combler de biens: (Id., Cinna, 1. 1447.) N'en doutez point, Seigneur, il fut votre soutien. (Racine, Esther, 1. 1114.) Rayonne, étourdissant ce qui s'évanou-it; (V. Hugo, Contemplations, p. 112.) Les harpes s'emplissaient d'un souffle harmoni-eux ; (Leconte de Lisle, Poèm. Barb., p. 130.) IX. Two final syllables, although spelt alike, do not form a correct rime if they are differently pronounced. Some liberty, however, is allowed in the case of words of rare occurrence for which there are no rimes or only very few rimes. This is especially the case with masculine rimes that have a final sounded consonant. As such words are rare in French, poets not infrequently couple them to other masculine words the final consonant of which is silent, so that lines like the following really only satisfy the conditions of assonance but not of full rime: Que de fois sur vos traits, par ma muse polis, (A. Chénier, Poésies, p. 274.) Il tombe de cheval, et, morne, épuisé, las, (V. Hugo, Légende des Siècles, ii. p. 148.) (Id., Contemplations, i. p. 66.) Une corne de buffle ou de rhinocéros; (Id., Légende des Siècles, i. p. 45.) To the same category belong the following: L'éléphant aux pieds lourds, Le lion, ce grand front de l'antre, l'aigle, l'ours. (V. Hugo, Contemplations, i. p. 164.) Jette tout à ses pieds; apprends-lui qui je suis; Dis-lui que je me meurs, que tu n'as plus de fils. (A. Chénier, Poésies, p. 55.) In the last case, however, it is possible to read the word as fi, adopting a pronunciation that is now old-fashioned, but which was the usual one at the end of the eighteenth century. Still more frequent are the instances in which one of the two words is a proper (chiefly classical) name: Le Tibre, fleuve-roi; Rome, fille de Mars, (A. Chénier, Poésies, p. 182.) Il se passa deux ans, durant lesquels Cassius (A. de Musset, Prem. Poés., p. 138.) (V. Hugo, Contemplations, i. p. 60.) Et qui peuvent, baisant la blessure du Christ, Croire que tout s'est fait comme il était écrit. (Gautier, Poés. Compl., i. p. 204.) Others of the same kind are: Pathmos mots, Cydnus: inconnus, Atropos: repos, Adonis : punis, &c.-all in Victor Hugo. Numerous examples can be quoted from the classical poets, although it is not certain that the final consonant of such proper names was sounded in the seventeenth century. The following cases occur in Racine alone: Porus: perdus, Titus: vertus, Lesbos : flots, Joas: soldats, Pallas: pas, &c. X. If in two riming words the identity of sound comprises also the consonant preceding the then the rime is said technically to be rich. main: demain violence: balance, &c. accented vowel, Thus : Even such rimes as peuplier: sanglier or trembler: parler, in which the accented syllable begins with a mute (c, t, p, g, d, b, f, v) followed by a liquid (1, r), but in which the identity of sound does not extend to the mute, are likewise regarded as rich rimes. Rich rime is left to the option of the poet, but it is almost compulsory in modern poetry when ordinary rime (rime suffisante) is formed by endings of frequent occurrence, such as the following: é(s), ée(s), er(s); ié(s), iée(s), ier(s), i, i(s), ie (s); u, ue, ue(s). Rich rime is also required for most words ending in -a, -ir, -on, -ent, -ant, -eur, -eux, except, however, in the case where one of the riming words is a monosyllable. Thus, peur humeur is irreproachable. This remark concerning monosyllabic words also applies to the other endings, quoted above, and which ordinarily require rich rime. Accordingly the following are blameless: Mais à qui prétend-on que je le sacrifie? La Grèce a-t-elle encor quelque droit sur sa vie? Ame lâche, et trop digne enfin d'être déçue, (Id., Bajazet, Act v. Sc. 3.) Et d'avoir quelque part un journal_inconnu (A. de Musset, Poés. Nouv., p. 115.) XI. With the exception of a few poets to be noticed subsequently, who practised rich rime extravagantly, it cannot be said that it is characteristic of Old French poetry. On the contrary, from the time that rime replaced assonance till the beginning of the fifteenth century, rich rime is the exception. It is unconscious and rare in the National Epic, in the longer narrative poems, and in the fabliaux. During the whole of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth century rich rime and its degenerate varieties raged in the puerile metrical tricks of the poets known as the grands rhétoriqueurs. Both Charles d'Orléans (1391-1465) and François Villon (1431-62) remained unaffected by the prevailing fashion. In fact the former seems rather to have avoided rich rime. Clément Marot (1497-1544) and the poets of his school, on the other hand, used rich rime as a principle, but rarely lapsed into the inanities of the grands rhétoriqueurs: Roy des Françoys, plein de toutes bontez, Trois grands pendars vindrent, a l'estourdie, Ce fut Marot, plus que s'il eust tonné, &c. (Marot, Prisonnier, Escript au Roy pour sa Delivrance.) Du Bellay, the spokesman of the school of Ronsard, the succeeding poetic group, is content to recommend rich but not over-curious rimes, and that only on certain conditions. In a well-known passage of the Deffence et Illustration de la Langue Françoise (1549), the manifesto of the new school, he writes: Quand je dy, que la Rythme doit estre riche, je n'entens qu'elle soit contrainte, et semblable à celle d'aulcuns, qui pensent auoir fait un grand chef d'œuure en Françoys, quand ilz ont rymé vn 'imminent' et vn 'iminent,' vn 'misericordieusement' et vn 'melodieusement, et autres de semblable farine, encores qu'il n'y ait sens, ou raison, qui vaille. Mais la Rythme de notre Poëte sera voluntaire, non forcée : receue, non appelée : propre, non aliene: naturelle, non adoptiue: bref, elle sera telle, que le vers tumbant en icelle ne contentera moins l'oreille, qu'une bien armonieuse Musique tumbante et un bon ét parfait accord. And although Ronsard himself was more careful of technically rich rime than Du Bellay, his recommendations in the Abrégé de l'Art Poetique François (1565) are to the same effect. He prefers rime that is resonnante et d'un son entier et parfait', but immediately after he makes the following significant restriction: Toutesfois tu seras plus soigneux de la belle invention et des mots que de la ryme, la quelle vient assez aisément d'elle-mesme, après quelque peu d'exercice et labeur 2. In spite of a positive statement to the contrary in Racan's Vie de Malherbe, there is no evidence in his works that the latter gave undue importance to rich rime. On the contrary, Malherbe and the classicists after him-Corneille, Racine, Molière, Boileau, &c.-paid even less attention to rich rime than the Pléiade. They were conscious that rime is an agreeable and indispensable part of French poetry, but they were never prepared to sacrifice exactness of thought and expression, as some modern poets have done, in order to be able to add the consonne d'appui at the end of the line. La rime est une esclave et ne doit qu'obéir sums up the attitude of the French classicists. The breaking up by the Romanticists of the regular classical Alexandrine, and the introduction of freer and more numerous rhythms, naturally and reasonably led to the necessity of richer rime than that usually employed by the classicists: the discordances, so to speak, of the interior of the line had to be compensated by a redoubling of the final sonority, and by a more distinct beat at the end of the line. Of the Romanticists, their leader, Victor Hugo, nearly invariably rimes richly, though it should not be overlooked that he attains his effects as much by the use of naturally sonorous syllables and expressive words as by technical rich rime: C'était l'heure où sortaient les chevaux du soleil. Le ciel, tout frémissant du glorieux réveil, Ouvrait les deux battants de sa porte sonore ; Blancs, ils apparaissaient formidables d'aurore; Derrière eux, comme un orbe effrayant couvert d'yeux, 1 Euvres, vii. p. 326. 2 Ibid. p. 326. 3 Euvres de Malherbe, i. p. lxxxiii. |