| A + A: | Sáncte Francísse | óra pro nóbis! Bale, Johan, p. 25. |
| A + A: | Péace, for with my spéctables | vádam et vidébo. ib. p. 30. |
| A + A: | Sýr, without ány | lónger délyaunce. Skelton, Magn. 239. |
| A + A1: | Wín her or lóse her, | trý you the tráp. Appius and Virginia, Dodsl. iv. 132. |
| A + A1: | Líkewise for a cómmonwealth | óccupied is hé. Four Elements, ib. i. 9. |
| A + A1: | Whát, you sáucy | málapert knáve. Jack Juggler, ib. ii. 145. |
The numerical preponderance of types A + A1 is at once perceptible, and usually these two types of hemistichs are combined in this order to form a long line.
The result is that in the course of time whole passages made up of lines of the same rhythmical structure (A + A1) are common in the dramatic poetry of this period, as e.g. in the Prologue to Gammer Gurton’s Needle:
As Gámmer Gúrton, with mánye a wýde stítch,
Sat pésynge and pátching of Hódg her mans bríche,
By chánce or misfórtune, as shée her gear tóst,
In Hódge lether brýches her néedle shee lóst.
Possibly this preference of the type A1 in the second half line may go back to the influence of the difference between the rhythmical structure of the first and the second hemistich of the alliterative line in early Middle English poetry.
§ 70. This view derives additional probability from the manner in which lines rhythmically identical with the alliterative hemistich are combined into certain forms of stanza which are used in the above-mentioned dramatic poems, especially in Bale’s Three Lawes.
For in this play those halves of tail-rhyme stanzas, which form the ‘wheels’ of the alliterative-rhyming stanzas previously described (§§ 61 and 66) as used in narrative poetry and in the mysteries, are completed so as to form entire tail-rhyme stanzas (of six or eight lines) similar to those mentioned in § 65. This will be evident from the following examples: