BOOK VI ...................................................................................................................
On the Alliterative Metre, without Rhyme, in Pierce Plowman's Visions. ...............
I shall begin this Third Book with an old allegoric satire: a manner of
moralizing, which, if it was not first introduced by the author ofPierce Plowman's
Visions, was at least chiefly brought into repute by that ancient satirist. It is not so
generally known that the kind of verse used in this ballad hath any affinity with the
peculiar metre of that writer, for which reason I shall throw together some cursory
remarks on that very singular species of versification, the nature of which has been so
little understood.
We learn from Wormius,[1] that the ancient Islandic poets used a great variety
of measures: he mentions 136 different kinds, without includingrhyme, or a
correspondence of final syllables; yet this was occasionally used, as appears from the
Ode of Egil, which Wormius hath inserted in his book.
He hath analysed the structure of one of these kinds of verse, the harmony of
which neither depended on the quantity of the syllables, like that of the ancient
Greeks and Romans; nor on the rhymes at the end, as in modern poetry; but consisted
altogether in alliteration, or a certain artful repetition of the sounds in the middle of
the verses. This was adjusted according to certain rules of their prosody, one of which
was, that every distich should contain at least three words beginning with the same
letter or sound. Two of these correspondent sounds might be placed either in the first
or second line of the distich and one in the other: but all three were not regularly to be
crowded into one line. This will be beet understood by the following examples.[2]
"Meire ogmine
Mogu heimdaller."
"GabGinunga
EnnGras huerge."
There were many other little niceties observed by the Islandic poets, who, as
they retained their original language and peculiarities longer than the other nations of
Gothic race, had time to cultivate their native poetry more, and to carry it to a higher
pitch of refinement, than any of the rest.
Their brethren the Anglo-Saxon poets occasionally used the same kind of
alliteration, and it is common to meet in their writings with similar examples of the
foregoing rules. Take an instance or two in modern characters:[3]
"Skeop tha andskyrede
Skyppend ure."
"Ham andHeahsetl
Heofena rikes."I know not, however, that there is any where extant an entire Saxon poem all in this
measure. But distichs of this sort perpetually occur in. all their poems of any length.
Now, if we examine the versification ofPierce Plowman's Visionswe shall
find it constructed exactly by these rules; and therefore each line, as printed, is in
reality a distich of two verses, and will, I believe, be found distinguished as such, by
some mark or other in all the ancient MSS. viz.:
"In aSomerSeason,[4] | when hot was theSunne,
IShope me intoShroubs, | as I aShepe were;