Besides the ordinary or normal alliterative line with four accents, there exists in Old English and in other West-Germanic poetry a variety of the alliterative line called the lengthened line (Schwellvers or Streckvers). In this line each hemistich has three accented syllables, the unaccented syllables standing in the same relation to the accented ones as they do in the normal two-beat hemistich.
§ 22. The structure of the hemistich in the normal alliterative line. The normal hemistich consists of four, seldom of five members[63] (Glieder), two of which are strongly accented (arses), the others unaccented or less strongly accented (theses). Each arsis is formed, as a rule, of a long accented syllable (–́), but the second part of a compound, and (less frequently) the second syllable with a secondary accent of a trisyllabic or disyllabic word, is allowed to stand as an arsis. By resolution a long accented syllable may be replaced by two short syllables, the first of which is accented. This is denoted by the symbol ⏑́×. The less strongly accented members of the hemistich fall into two classes according as they are unaccented or have the secondary accent. This division depends ultimately on the logical or etymological importance of the syllables. Unaccented syllables (marked in Sievers’s notation by ×) whether long or short by etymology, are mostly inflexional endings, formative elements, or proclitic and enclitic words.
Secondarily accented verse-members, mostly monosyllabic and long (denoted by ×̀, and occasionally, when short, by ⏑̀), are root-syllables in the second part of compounds, long second syllables of trisyllabic words whose root-syllable is long, and other syllables where in ordinary speech the presence of a secondary accent is unmistakable. The rhythmical value of these syllables with secondary accent is not always the same. When they stand in a foot or measure of two members and are preceded by an accented syllable they count as simply unaccented, and the foot is practically identical with the normal type represented by the notation –́× (as in the hemistich wī́sra wórda), but these half-accented syllables may be called heavy theses, and the feet which contain them may be denoted by the formula –́×̀, as in wí̄sfæ̀st wórdum (–́×̀|–́×). A hemistich like the last is called by Sievers strengthened (gesteigert), or if it has two heavy unaccented syllables in both feet, doubly strengthened, as in the section gū́ðrìnc góldwlànc (–́×̀|–́×̀). In these examples the occurrence of a heavy unaccented syllable is permissible but not necessary; but in feet or measures of three members they are obligatory, being required as an intermediate degree between the arsis and thesis, or strongly accented and unaccented member, as in þégn Hrṓðgā́res (–́|–́××̀), or fýrst fórð gewà̄t (–́|–́××̀), or hḗalǣ̀rna mǣ́st (–́×̀×|–́). In these cases Sievers gives the verse-member with this secondary accent the character of a subordinate arsis, or beat (Nebenhebung). But it is better, in view of the strongly marked two-beat swing of the hemistich, to look on such members with a secondary accent as having only the rhythmical value of unaccented syllables, and to call them theses with a slight accent. The two-beat rhythm of the hemistich is its main characteristic, for though the two beats are not always of exactly equal force[64] they are always prominently distinguished from the unaccented members of the hemistich, the rhythm of which would be marred by the introduction of an additional beat however slightly marked.
Cases in which the two chief beats of the hemistich are not of exactly the same force occur when two accented syllables, either both with chief accent or one with chief and the other with secondary accent, stand in immediate juxtaposition, not separated by an unaccented syllable. The second of these two accented syllables may be a short syllable with chief accent, instead of a long syllable as is the rule. But in either case, whether long or short, this second beat following at once on the first beat is usually uttered with somewhat less force than the first, as can be seen from examples like gebū́n hǽfdon, Beow. 117; tō hā́m fáran, 121; mid ǣ́rdǽge, 126. The second beat rarely predominates over the first. The cause of this variation in the force of the two beats is to be sought in the laws of the syntactical accent.
In other respects verse-members with a secondary accent obey the same laws as those with a primary accent. They usually consist of one long syllable, but if a member which has the arsis immediately precedes, a short syllable with a secondary accent may be substituted. Resolution of such verse members is rare, which shows that they are more closely related to the thesis than to the arsis of the hemistich. One unaccented syllable is sufficient to form the thesis (×), but the thesis may also have two or more unaccented syllables (××,×××..), their number increasing in proportion to their shortness and the ease with which they can be pronounced, provided always that no secondary accent intervenes. All of these unaccented syllables are reckoned together as one thesis, as against the accented syllable or arsis. The single components of such a longer thesis may exhibit a certain gradation of force when compared with one another, but this degree of force must never equal the force with which the arsis is pronounced, though we sometimes find that, owing to the varying character of the syntactical or sentence accent, a monosyllable which in one case stands in the thesis, may in another connexion bear the secondary or even the primary accent.
§ 23. The number of the unaccented syllables of the thesis was formerly believed to depend entirely on the choice of the individual poet.[65] Sievers first put this matter in its right light by the statistics of the metre.[66] He showed that the hemistich of the Old English alliterative line is similar to the Old Norse four-syllable verse, and is as a rule of a trochaic rhythm (–́×–́×). The proof of this is that in Beowulf, for instance, there are 592 hemistichs of the type –́×|–́× (as hȳ́ran scólde, 10), and that in the same text there are 238 of the type –́××|–́× (as gṓde gewýrcean, 20; hḗold þenden lī́fde, 57), making 830 hemistichs with trochaic or dactylic rhythm, as against eleven hemistichs of similar structure but with an unaccented syllable at the beginning, ×|–́×(×)|–́×, and even four or five of these eleven are of doubtful correctness. From these figures it seems almost beyond doubt that in the type –́×(×)|–́× the licence of letting the hemistich begin with an unaccented syllable before the first accented syllable was, generally speaking, avoided. On the other hand, when the first accented syllable is short with only one unaccented syllable as thesis (⏑́×), we find this initial unaccented syllable to be the rule, as genúmen hǽfdon Beow. 3167 (×|⏑́×|–́×), of which form there are 130 examples, while, as Rieger noticed, ⏑́×|–́× is rare, as in cýning mǣ́nan Beow. 3173. It is perhaps still more remarkable that while the form –́××|–́× occurs some 238 times, a verse of the form ×|⏑́××|–́× is never found at all. The numerical proportion of the form –́×|–́× (592 cases) to –́××|–́× (238 cases) is roughly 5 to 2, and that of ×|⏑́×|–́× (130 cases) to ×|⏑́××|–́× (no cases) is 130 to nothing. The quantity of the second arsis is, as bearing on the prefixing of unaccented syllables to the hemistich, much less important than the quantity of the first arsis. Hemistichs of the type –́×|⏑́× occur 34 times, and in 29 cases the last unaccented syllable is a full word, either a monosyllable or a part of a compound. The same type, with an initial unaccented syllable ×|–́×|⏑́× also occurs 34 times, but then the last syllable is quite unaccented. The proportion of the form –́×|–́× to the form ×|–́×|–́× is 592 to 11, and that of the form –́×|⏑́× to ×–́×|⏑́× is 34 to 34, a noticeable difference.
Further, it was formerly supposed that the number of unaccented syllables following the accented syllable was indifferent. This is not the case. The form –́××|–́× is found 238 times, and the form –́×|–́×× only 22 times. Many of the examples of the latter form are doubtful, but even counting all these the proportion of the two forms is 11 to 1.
If the two accented syllables are not separated by an unaccented syllable, that is to say, if the two beats are in immediate juxtaposition, then either two unaccented syllables must stand after the second arsis, thus –́|–́×× (a form that occurs 120 times in Beowulf), or an unaccented syllable must precede the first arsis and one unaccented syllable must follow the second arsis, thus ×–́|–́× (127 times in Beowulf), or with the second arsis short ×–́|⏑́× (257 times); the form –́|–́× does not occur.
From these statistics it results that hemistichs of the form –́×|–́× are met with about 17 times to one occurrence of the form –́×|⏑́×, and that on the other hand, the form ×–́|⏑́× is about twice as frequent as ×–́|–́×.