were French words of similar spelling, except that the final consonants are more often sounded than not: Nous nous promenions parmi les décombres, A Rozel-Tower, Et nous écoutions les paroles sombres Que disait la mer. (V. Hugo, Châtiments, p. 243.) comte de Glascow; David, roi de Stirling, Jean, (Légende des Siècles, ii. p. 142.) Car il faut que demain on dise, quand il passe: (Musset, Prem. Poés., p. 337.) The English pronunciation is adopted for Shakespeare: Horror! horror! horror! comme disait Shakspeare, Une chose sans nom impossible à décrire. (Gautier, Poés. Compl., p. 132.) German words are treated in the same way as English words: Hélas! reprit Mardoche, un homme sur le haut Such a rime as the following is indefensible : A vous faire oublier, à vous, peintre et poëte, ... (Gautier, Poés. Compl., p. 124.) This one also supposes a ridiculous pronunciation of the word Huss: Car ils ne sont complets qu'après qu'ils sont déchus (V. Hugo, Contemplations, i. p. 75.) CHAPTER IV THE CESURA I. The cesura 1, in modern French verse, may be defined as a pause in the interior of the line, dividing the line into so many parts, which pause indicates the end of a rhythmical period and enables the voice to rest after a given number of syllables, of which the last is accented and terminates the word. The parts of the line divided by the cesura are known as hémistiches. The term 'hemistich' (uous, half; orixos, verse) should etymologically be used only of rhythmical divisions of equal length, as in the classical Alexandrine or line of twelve syllables: Je leur semai de fleurs | le bord des précipices. (Racine.) But it is often applied for the sake of convenience, and, for lack of a better term, to any verse-members whether of equal or unequal length. It follows from the definition of the term 'cesura' that only masculine words, or words that are accented on the last syllable, can occur immediately before the cesural pause. Words accented on the last syllable but one, or feminine words, can only occur as the last word preceding the cesura on condition that they end in e mute and the first word of the second hemistich begins with a vowel or h mute, in which case the e mute falls by elision: Oui, je viens dans son templ(e) | adorer l'Éternel. (Racine.) (Victor Hugo.) 1 The word césure, borrowed from Latin, and which has been the recognized term since the beginning of the seventeenth century, is not very happy as applied to French verse, nor is the older word coupe, the nature of the classical cesura differing essentially from that of French verse. The word repos or reprise d'haleine, used by Ronsard in the Abrégé de l'Art Poétique (Euvres, vii. p. 331), is much more felicitous. Modern theorists still use coupe and repos by the side of the official césure. Feminine words ending in -es or -ent cannot therefore occur before the cesura, as they do not suffer elision. An exception is made, however, in the case of the ending -aient of the imperfect indicative and present conditional, and also of the forms aient and soient of the present subjunctive of avoir and être respectively, which, as well as the third persons plural of the imperfect indicative and conditional present, are reckoned as masculine words: Les prêtres ne pouvaient | suffire aux sacrifices. Tous les miens tenteraient | la faveur éclatante. (Racine.) (Molière.) Les feuilles s'empourpraient | dans les arbres vermeils. (Hugo.) Thus the feminine cesura is only apparent and does not really exist in modern French versification. II. This is true in Modern French of those lines which have only one cesura, but in those lines which can have two cesuras, more especially the Romantic Alexandrine, another kind of cesura, called césure enjambante or overflowing cesura, is found. As the line with more than one cesura was practically invented by Victor Hugo and regularly practised by him and his school for the first time in French poetry, the césure enjambante is scarcely ever met with before the Romantic poets. In the césure enjambante the accent falls on the last syllable but one of feminine words, and the feminine e (-e, -es, -ent) that follows is carried on into the next hemistich Vêtu de probité candide et de lin blanc. : (V. Hugo.) (Id.) (Id.) (Id.) This cesura is a great gain to French poetry, and relieves the monotony produced by the invariable use of the masculine cesura 1. 1 The overflowing cesura is found here and there in Old and Middle French poets in lines with only one cesura : Mais belle da me se doit bien garder. Chascuns se van te d'amer lealment. (Conon de Béthune.) (Gautier d'Espinal.) (Eustache Deschamps.) It is quite common in the Italian endecasillabo (and in the Spanish and By the side of the masculine cesura Old French and Middle French made use of two other kinds of cesuras, both feminine cesuras. III. The Epic Cesura (césure épique), so called because it occurs almost exclusively in epic poetry. In the epic cesura the cesural pause is preceded by a final unelidable feminine syllable which does not count in the number of syllables making up the line, just in the same way as the feminine syllable that ends a line is not reckoned in the measure. In other words, Old and Middle French poets were at liberty to treat the hemistich in the same way as the end of the line: Bons fut li sie-cles | al tens ancïenor. Or in the Alexandrine : (Alexis, 1. 1.) (Id., 1. 21.) (Roland, 1. 16.) (Id., 1. 89.) (Aymeri, l. 15.) Li rois de sainte gloi-re | qui en la crois fu mis. (Aiol.1.2.) (Gui de Bourgogne, 1. 13.) Argent ly demandoi-ent | bourgeois et escuiier. (Hugues Capet, 1. 24.) Un jorn fut li reis Char-les | al saint Denis mostier. (Pèlerinage, 1. 11.) Portuguese line of eleven syllables), and for that reason is sometimes known as césure italienne: Pute la terra che questo ricève. Di sélva in selva dal crudél s'invola. (Dante.) (Ariosto.) 1 A few statistics will show how very frequent the epic cesura is in the O.F. chansons de geste. If the first 500 lines of each of the following epics are examined the proportion of epic cesuras works out thus: Roland = 34 per cent. Raoul de Cambrai = 39 per cent. 31 per cent. The percentage is still larger in those chansons composed in Alexandrines: Gui de Bourgogne = 51 per cent. = 49 per cent. = 45 per cent. See for further details H. Otten, Ueber die Caesur im Altfranzösischen, Greifswald Dissert., 1884. There are very few assured examples of the epic cesura in the literary lyric poetry of the trouvères, but it occurs quite commonly in the popular romances of the eleventh and twelfth centuries: Reynauz repai-re | devant el premier front. (Bartsch, Rom. und Past., p. 1, 1. 3.) A trente da-mes | que avec moi menrai. (Id., 1. 21.) Similarly in semi-popular lyric poetry, such as the chansons de toile of Audefrois li Bastars 1. Bien fust ore la ter-re | de mon pere escillié. (p. 102, 1. 25.) Son errement li con-te, | dont bien etoit certaine. (p. 103, 1. 75.) Already in the fourteenth century French poets strove to avoid the epic cesura, and, excepting popular poetry, it becomes rare in the works of the majority of the poets of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. It was then that Jean Lemaire de Belges (b. 1473), the best poet of the time, pronounced himself, according to Clément Marot's testimony, against this kind of cesura. In the latter's preface to the Adolescence Clémentine we read the following important declaration: . . . mais l'Adolescence ira devant, et la commencerons par la première eglogue des Bucoliques virgilianes, translatée (certes) en grande jeunesse, comme pourrez en plusieurs sortes congnoistre, mesmement par les couppes femenines que je n'observois encor alors, dont Jehan Lemaire de Belges (en les m'aprenant) me reprint. On this passage of Marot, prosodists have based the assertion that Lemaire had formulated in his works a direct prohibition of the epic cesura. The conclusion is unwarranted. His works would be searched in vain for any passage that could be construed into an explanation or allusion to any rule of the kind. It is probable that Marot means that he had learnt the lesson from Lemaire's example, whose poetic works only contain five or six instances of epic cesura, or, what is still more probable, that he had received the precept by word of mouth. In any case Marot took the lesson to heart, and, if his early works are excepted, it may be said that he 3 1 Cf. Stengel, Ausgaben und Abhandlungen, xciv. p. 96 sqq. 3e. g. Quicherat, p. 327. |