Prosody of the Transition to to Middle English
This prosody governed English verse from a time certainly anterior to the existence of any "English" nationality to about 1000 A.D., the great bulk of the production resulting under it being considerably older than the last-named date. At or about that date, certainly before the "Conquest," it began to be subjected to devitalising and disintegrating influences, not necessary to be discussed in detail here. The important fact is that from c. 1000 to c. 1200 the existing amount of Old English verse is very small indeed; and that, even in the few existing probably dated examples, singular changes begin to exhibit themselves. In the "Rhyming Poem" (before 1000?) the introduction of the element indicated in the title completely revolutionises the system.[50] In the "Grave Poem" (c. 1100?) a new element of rhythm appears, the tendency being, here and henceforth, to substitute iambic, varied by anapæestic, cadence for the general trochaic run, and to associate two lines or four halves in a kind of quatrain.[51] In the remarkable fragments of St. Godric (1150?) rhyme, which does not appear in the "Grave Poem," assists the rhythmical tendency of this latter to make a new music;[52] and the well-known "Canute Song"[53] chimes in. While if the "Paternoster" be really of the twelfth century, as some have said, there are in it iambic dimeter couplets[54] of a kind which never, by any chance, suggests itself in the whole corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry proper.
This couplet is neither more nor less than a pair of iambic dimeters or "four-accent ['-beat'] lines in rising stress," shortened occasionally to seven syllables instead of eight, probably from the first also admitting extension, not by addition of feet, but by substitution of them.
Contrast in Layamon.
Two couplets, or two batches of short (half) lines, from Layamon will show the difference at once and unmistakably to any one who possesses an ear:
Eorles ¦ ther com¦en ||
riche ¦ and wel ¦ idone.
. . . . . . .
Thă ān|swĕrē|dĕ Vōr|tĭgēr
Ŏf ēl|chĕn vū|ĕl hē | wĕs wēr.
The first distich, it will be observed, is a loose and broken-down one on the schemes of perfect O.E. verse. There is hardly any real alliteration, and the accented syllables are clumsily placed and valued. But the thing does retain, and that pretty sufficiently, the strong centre pause, and the folding-back swing of the two halves, like those of a flail or a pair of lemon-squeezers, which are the real characteristics of O.E. or A.S. verse. It is not itself "riche" versification; it is not "wel idone"; but you cannot mistake it for anything but what it is.
With the other you have got into a new world. There is alliteration here; but it has nothing on earth to do with the construction and run of the verse. There is what you may call accent if you insist upon it; but it is quite differently and much more regularly arranged, constituting, moreover, a rhythm perfectly distinct to the ear. There are two halves; but the second half is not so much a completion as a repetition. And instead of the strong middle break—a break and nothing else—the halves are tipped with rhyme—a division which, if they were printed straight on, you would not notice till you got to the end of the second, and which requires very little (hardly any) stop of the voice, while the breach of the old couplet insists on this.
Examinations of it—Insufficient.
Now the question legitimately suggests itself, "Why is this strange contrast present?"—a contrast which, it should be added, is not only present but omnipresent in this great poem of 30,000 (half) lines in all forms, from something quite near the old A.S. line, through things farther from it, to imperfect forms of the new couplet and so to perfect ones. One answer is as follows: "This couplet was already established in French literature—in fact in the very French literature (Wace) which formed part of Layamon's originals. Moreover, it exists also in Latin—the Latin of the hymns with which the priest Layamon must have been perfectly familiar. When, therefore, it appears, he is simply imitating it with more or less success." Now the facts of this answer, as far as they go, are indisputable. The octosyllabic couplet, though not so old as the decasyllabic line in O.F., is very old, and by Layamon's time had been written very largely indeed. Octosyllabic lines, both of iambic and trochaic cadence, form the very staple of the Latin hymns; and both in Latin (earlier far) and in French, after a period of assonance, rhyme had thoroughly established itself.