Yes! all is true my fears could frame; A prisoner lies the noble Graeme, And fiery Roderick soon will feel The vengeance of the royal steel. I, only I, can ward their fate,— God grant the ransom come not late. The abbess hath her promise given. My child shall be the bride of Heaven:— Be pardoned one repining tear! For he, who gave her, knows how dear, How excellent! but that is by, And now my business is—to die.
The low pitch is also partly due to the fact that the Douglas is speaking to himself, and has no desire to communicate his thoughts to another; for the effort to communicate thought causes increased tension.
Again, it requires greater effort to address a person who is at a distance than one close at hand, or to address a large audience than a small one. Observe the comparatively high pitch in which Antony (p. [225]) begins his oration:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
If the reader wishes to give prominence to a thought, the effort put forth causes muscular tension, resulting in a higher pitch. On the other hand, a thought, which the reader regards as not of special importance to the listener, finds expression in lower pitch, more as if he were addressing himself:
Bold words!—but, though the beast of game The privilege of chase may claim, Though space and law the stag we lend, Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, Who ever recked, where, how, or when, The prowling fox was trapped or slain?
Observe the lower pitch of the subordinate clauses in the first four lines, and the higher pitch in the last two lines which project the leading thought.
"I think, boys," said the schoolmaster, when the clock struck twelve, "that I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon."
Similarly, the narrative clause "said the schoolmaster" which interrupts the direct speech is read in lower pitch and is separated by a marked pause before and after.
Parenthetical expressions, also for the same reason, are read in lower pitch.