Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (best book series to read txt) 📕

The Nurse and Peter

The Metre of the Play.—It should be understood at the outset that metre, or the mechanism of verse, is something altogether distinct from the music of verse. The one is matter of rule, the other of taste and feeling. Music is not an absolute necessity of verse; the metrical form is a necessity, being that which constitutes the verse.

The plays of Shakespeare (with the exception of rhymed passages, and of occasional songs and interludes) are all in unrhymed or blank verse; and the normal form of this blank verse is illustrated by the second line of the prologue to the present play: "In fair Verona, where we lay our scene."

This line, it will be seen, consists of ten syllables, with the even syllables (2d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th) accented, the odd syllables (1st, 3d, etc.) being unaccented. Theoretically, it is made up of five feet of two syllables each, with the accent on the second syllable. Such a foot is called an iambus (plural, iambuses, or the Latin iambi), and the form of verse is called iambic.

This fundamental law of Shakespeare's verse is subject to certain modifications, the most important of which are as follows:—

1. After the tenth syllable an unaccented syllable (or even two such syllables) may be added, forming what is sometimes called a female line; as in the 103d line of the first scene: "Here were the servants of your adversary." The rhythm is complete with the third syllable of adversary, the fourth being an extra eleventh syllable. In iv. 3. 27 and v. 3. 256 we have two extra syllables,—the last two of Romeo in both lines.

2. The accent in any part of the verse may be shifted from an even to an odd syllable; as in line 3 of the prologue, "From ancient grudge break to new mutiny," where the accent is shifted from the sixth to the fifth syllable. See also i. 1. 92: "Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate;" where the accent is shifted from the second to the first syllable. This change occurs very rarely in the tenth syllable, and seldom in the fourth; and it is not allowable in two successive accented syllables.

3. An extra unaccented syllable may occur in any part of the line; as in line 7 of the prologue, where the second syllable of piteous is superfluous. In i. 1. 64 the third syllable of Benvolio, and in line 71 below the second syllable of Capulets and the second the are both superfluous.

4. Any unaccented syllable, occurring in an even place immediately before or after an even syllable which is properly accented, is reckoned as accented for the purposes of the verse; as, for instance, in lines 1, 3, and 7 of the prologue. In 1 the last syllable of dignity and in 3 the last of mutiny are metrically equivalent to accented syllables. In 7 the same is true of the first syllable of misadventur'd and the third of overthrows. In iv. 2. 18 ("Of disobedient opposition") only two regular accents occur, but we have a metrical accent on the first syllable of disobedient, and on the first and the last syllables of opposition, which word has metrically five syllables. In disobedient there is an extra unaccented syllable.

5. In many instances in Shakespeare words must be lengthened in order to fill out the rhythm:—

(a) In a large class of words in which e or i is followed by another vowel, the e or i is made a separate syllable; as ocean, opinion, soldier, patience, partial, marriage, etc. For instance, iii. 5. 29 ("Some say the lark makes sweet division") appears to have only nine syllables, but division is a quadrisyllable; and so is devotion in iv. 1. 41: "God shield I should disturb devotion!" Marriage is a trisyllable in iv. 1. 11, and also in v. 3. 241; and the same is true of patience in v. 1. 27 v. 1. 27, v. 3. 221 and 261. This lengthening occurs most frequently at the end of the line.

(b) Many monosyllables ending in r, re, rs, res, preceded by a long vowel or diphthong, are often made dissyllables; as fare, fear, dear, fire, hair, hour, your, etc. In iii. 1. 198: "Else, when he's found, that hour is his last," hour is a dissyllable. If the word is repeated in a verse it is often both monosyllable and dissyllable; as in M. of V. iii. 2. 20: "And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so," where either yours (preferably the first) is a dissyllable, the other being a monosyllable. In J.C. iii. 1. 172: