in some northern French epics, as in Audigier,' a later parody of the old heroic chanson de geste. The equal flow of this verse did not make it adaptable for the formation of stanzas; and there was the less occasion for such formation in the older epic poetry, as the rhyme or assonance remained unchanged through a great number of verses. This explains the tirade monorime which is the characteristic of the popular in contrast to the artificial epic. To break the monotony of this metre, however, many of the popular joglars introduced after a certain number of decasyllabic verses a shorter line, a bordo biocatz according to the expression of the 'Leys d'Amors,' which at the same time by its rhyme formed a transition to the following tirade. tirade. An instance

occurs in the first part of the chronicle of the Albigeois, while in the second the shorter line is without any rhyme-one reason more for believing that the two parts were not both written by the same author, Guillem de Tudela. Moreover, lyric poets used a kind of tirade monorime intermixed with shorter verses, such as is found in the song by which Richard Cœur de Lion beguiled the hours of his imprisonment in Germany. The first stanza of this song may be quoted as an example of this form : Ja nus homs pres non dira sa razon adrechament, si com homs dolens non ; mas per conort deu hom faire canson: pro n'ay d'amics, mas paubre son li don. Ancta lur es, se per ma rezenson

soi sai dos ivers pres.

The word 'pres' recurs at the end of each of the

shorter verses, and forms a sort of burden. The same song also exists in French, and the latter seems indeed to be the original version.

It would lead us too far to follow the traces of the decasyllabic verse through the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese languages. In Italy the position of the cæsura was not fixed by strict rules as in the langue doc and langue d'oil; sometimes there are two accents and corresponding pauzas on the fourth and seventh or eighth syllables, and sometimes only one on the sixth. The cæsura in the decasyllabic metre which occurs in the canzos and sirventeses of the troubadours, is different from that in the tirade monorime of the popular epic. It has been seen that here in case of a pauza con accen greu the first part of the verse, and therefore the whole verse, became one syllable too long. The stricter metrical rules of lyric poetry did not admit of such liberties. Hence, if the lyrical cæsura is masculine, the chief accent is. on the fourth syllable; if it is feminine the chief metrical accent goes back to the third syllable, and the fourth, which in epic poetry is always strongly accentuated, becomes weak. The mas

culine lyrical cæsura, which shows no difference from the epical, is found, for instance, in the beginning of Bertrand de Born's sirventes :

Pos als barós | enoja e lor peza

d'aquesta pátz | qu'an faita li dui rei;

while the lyrical pauza con accen greu occurs in the third stanza of the same poem :

Cum aquésta | ni autra c'om li grei.

The epical cæsura in its feminine form is found very seldom in the poetry of the troubadours. Two of the rare instances occur in a canzo of Guillem de Cabestanh; and there the case is the more remarkable, as the epical and lyrical pauzas appear intermixed. The two verses are:

and

Don mi remémbra | douza terra el pais,

En autra térra | irai penre lenhatge.

In both cases the epical pauza might be got rid of by a slight alteration, which, however, is not confirmed by the authority of any manuscript. In the first case, 'membra' might easily be written instead of ' remembra,' by which means the epical cæsura would become lyrical; and in the second case the a of 'terra' might be supplied by an apostrophe, by means of which the pauza would altogether disappear. In the last stanza of the same poem, as preserved in several manuscripts, is found the only example in lyrical poetry of the second hemistich being shortened after the feminine pauza, which, as has been seen above, occurs several times in Boethius.' The line is this:

Q'ieu non vólgra | qe fos ma cusina.

But the difficulty is not serious; for this and other reasons, metrical and philological, prove that the stanza is a spurious addition of a later ignorant scribe. This instance shows how important a knowledge of metrical rules is for the critical editing of a Provençal author.

CHAPTER XXX.

RHYME.

THE immense number of rhyming words in the Provençal language has been already referred to. Of the fifty-four forms of the verb of the first conjugation, only nine have the accent on the root, while forty-five have it on one of the final syllables; hence all the verbs of this conjugation rhyme with each other in these forms. Again, all the derivative syllables of the adjectives and nouns, like at-ada, ut-uda, or atge, ansa, ensa, and many others, have the accent on these syllables, and offer great choice of material to the poet in search of rhymes. Consequently, in all Provençal poetry, the rhyme plays a principal part, and metrical scholars considered it their most important task to introduce the student into the minutest subtleties of its beauty. Dante intended to speak of rhyme 'secundum se' in one of the later parts of his book, which he never wrote; in the existing parts he speaks of it only in connection with the stanza. In accordance, however, with the 'Leys d'Amors,' it will be necessary to consider the essence of rhyme in itself, before proceeding to its influence on the

combination of verses in a stanza, and of stanzas in

a poem.

The 'Leys d'Amors' uses the word rim or rima in a perfectly different sense from the modern rhyme. Its definition is this: Rims es certz nombres de syllabas, ajustat a lui autre bordo per pario d'aquela meteysha accordansa e paritat de syllabas, o de diversas am bela cazensa.' Rim exists therefore not only if the accordansa is the same, which constitutes approximately what is now called rhyme, but also though the ends of the two verses concerned sound quite differently, provided that a certain harmony or cazensa is effected simply by their lengths or accents. This must be borne in mind while we consider the division of rims into four classes as given by the Leys d'Amors,' viz., rims estramps, accordans, ordinals, and dictionals. The division is not very logical; for some of the rims enumerated have nothing to do with the essence of rhyme. Rim estramp in its exact meaning is nothing but the absence of rhyme or even assonance between two verses. In the poetry of the troubadours there is scarcely a line which has not its corresponding rhyme, either in its own or in another stanza, so that rims estramps are of no importance for the present purpose. Everything that is now called rhyme and was used by the troubadours is contained under the second head, rims accordans. This accordansa may be sonan, consonan, or leonisme; and the rims sonans and consonans must be again subdivided into bords (French, bâtard) and lejals. Rim sonan bord is what