Up þe wáter of Sóure | a cíty óf gret fáme
He éndede, and clépede yt Léicestre, | áftur is ówne náme.
Þre dóȝtren þis kýng hádde, | þe éldeste Górnorílle,
Þe mýdmost hátte Régan, | þe ȝóngost Córdeílle.
Þe fáder hem lóuede álle ynóȝ, | ác þe ȝóngost mést:
For héo was bést an fáirest, | and to háutenésse drow lést.
Þó þe kýng to élde cóm, | álle þré he bróȝte
Hys dóȝtren tofóre hým, | to wýte of hére þóuȝte.
§ 145. At the end of the thirteenth century the Septenary and Alexandrine were, however, relegated to a subordinate position by the new fashionable five-foot iambic verse. But we soon meet them again in popular works of another kind, viz. in the Miracle Plays, especially in some plays of the Towneley Collection, like the Conspiratio et Capcio (p. 182), and actually employed quite in the arbitrary sequence hitherto observed, Alexandrine sometimes rhyming with Alexandrine, Septenary with Septenary, but, more frequently, Alexandrine with Septenary. A passage from the Towneley Mysteries may make this clear:
Now háve ye hárt what Í have sáyde, | I gó and cóm agáyn,