[§ 108]. The addition of a weak syllable at the end of a line is easily explained. It is because, at this point, the poet is FREE; that is, the pause that naturally occurs there enables him to insert an additional syllable with ease. Shakespeare did not hesitate even to add two syllables there, if he was so minded; as in Rich. III. iii. 6. 9:—'Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.'
For a like reason, the medial pause likewise gives him freedom, and enables an additional syllable to be inserted with comparative ease. We may believe that, in old times, when poetry was recited by minstrels to large assemblies, the enunciation of it was slow and deliberate, and the pauses were longer than when we now read it to a friend or to ourselves. The importance attached to suffixes denoting inflexions tends to prove this. The minstrel's first business was to be understood. Many speakers speak too fast, and make too short pauses, till experience teaches them better.
Hence there is no need to elide a vowel at the caesura; it must therefore be sounded clearly. In A 2, the final -e in March-e should be fully pronounced.
The fact is made much clearer by observing such instances as the following, all from the Cant. Tales, Group B:—
Or-élles cértës | ye béen to dáun.geròus (2129).
