This division is found combined with 3+6 in a song of Sus debout | la merveille des belles, (Euvres, i. p. 226.) The most effective division of the line of nine syllables is the one which separates it into three equal parts by the use of a double cesura: La Musique aujourd'hui | pourrait dire (Fernand Gregh, La Maison de l'Enfance, p. 145.) The ternary division is also occasionally found in O. F. lyric poetry: Je ne sai dont li maus | vient que j'ai, (Bartsch, Rom. und Past., p. 82.) Still scarcer than the lines of eleven and nine syllables are those lines with a number of syllables exceeding that of the Alexandrine. 8. The line of thirteen syllables is very rare in O. F. In the seventeenth century it is found in a bacchic song of the burlesque poet Scarron with the cesura after the fifth syllable (5+8): Sobres, loin d'ici, | loin d'ici, buveurs d'eau bouillie; But it was not till the late nineteenth century that this measure was really tested. Théodore de Banville affords one or two examples of it, also with the cesura after the fifth syllable: Le tigre indien, le lynx, les panthères tachées, 1 Quoted by Quicherat, p. 547. Les chèvres des monts, | que, réjouis par de doux vins, (Petit Traité, p. 18.) The second parts of these lines seem to drag somewhat, and, as if conscious of this, Richepin tried the division 6+7: Dans l'ombre autour de moi | vibrent des frissons d'amour, Venu je ne sais d'où | parmi les senteurs salines Traîne un vol de parfums, | oeillets, roses, miel, pralines. Le vent voluptueux | roule un choeur de voix câlines, Dans l'ombre autour de moi | vibrent des frissons d'amour. (La Mer, p. 239.) The Décadents and Symbolistes have used varying cesuras in the same piece, not infrequently with good effect, as Verlaine in the following stanzas in which the ternary division preponderates: Simplement, comme on verse un parfum | sur une flamme (Choix de Poesies, p. 276.) The few modern poets who have attempted the line of fourteen syllables have generally placed the cesura after the sixth syllable (6+8): Aussi la créature | était par trop toujours la même, Qui donnait ses baisers comme un enfant donne des noix; De la cire à moustache | et de l'empois de faux cols droits. The least inharmonious division of this line is the ternary division with the first cesura after the fourth syllable and the second after the eighth (4+4+6), preferably with feminine ending. This treatment of the line was invariably followed by the few O. F. poets who used this measure: Mahom reni, | k'en enfer trait, | ki lui sert et honure; 1 Quoted by Tobler, p. 127. 9. The line of fifteen syllables occurs only in the so-called vers baïfins, with the cesura after the seventh syllable (7+8) and feminine rime: Muse, royne d'Elicon, | fille de memoire, ô déesse, Je veu donner aux François | un vers de plus libre accordance Lines of more than fifteen syllables are not found in French poetry, if we except the experiments of the boldest of the Symbolists and Vers-Libristes, who occasionally mix verses of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, or even a larger number of syllables with shorter measures in the same piece 1. 1 Cf. Gustave Kahn, Premiers Poèmes, Paris, 1897. CHAPTER V ENJAMBEMENT OR OVERFLOW I. Enjambement is the overflowing of a clause begun in the one line into the next line or a subsequent line. II. Enjambement has at all times been freely admissible in the octosyllabic line. The reason is that it would not be possible, without the greatest monotony, invariably to contain the phrase within so short a period. But enjambements such as the following have always been looked upon as forced even in the octosyllabic line1: III. In the decasyllabic line overflow is very rarely employed in Old French, and never in the popular or National Epic. Since the Middle French period, however, it has been admissible to use enjambement in that measure, provided the overflow takes up the whole of the next line or extends as far as the cesura: 1 Some O.F. poets even went so far as to occasionally stop the line in the middle of a word, as is sometimes done in English doggerel: Mais la matiere pas de liege Ne fu de quoy elle estoit faite, (Chemin de lonc estude, 1. 2272. Quoted by Tobler, p. 25.) 2 Quoted by Tobler, p. 24. Se vous clamons, frères, pas n'en devez Que tous les hommes n'ont pas bon sens assis. (Villon, Œuvres, p. 154.) Lors sire Rat va commencer à mordre (Marot, Euvres, p. 39.) Examples are still more frequent in the poets of the Renaissance: Dessous le pas du soldat qui chemine (Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 178.) En ce chasteau par bandes fresmissoient (Ibid. p. 191.) Des preux guerriers; par toy leur bel honneur De jour en jour florira davantage. (Baïf, Poes. Chois., p. 24.) Instances occur also in the classical poets, and more plentifully in those of the nineteenth century: Qui vous retient? allez; déjà l'hiver A disparu; déjà gronde dans l'air (Voltaire, Le Pauvre Diable, 11. 13-15.) Très rarement les antiques discretes (Gresset, Ver-Vert, Canto i. p. 6.) Quoiqu'on soit femme, il faut parfois qu'on lise Dans le latin... Pour lui traduire un psaume, bien souvent Je me penchais sur son livre à l'église. (V. Hugo, Contemplations, i. p. 36,) And in the decasyllabic line with the pause after the fifth syllable: |