wýrd æfter þíssum wórdgeméarcum.Gen. 2355.
gif ge wíllað mī́nre míhte gelḗfan.Sat. 251.
In Beowulf this separation of closely connected words is permitted only if the word standing in the arsis alliterates at the same time. Longer parts of a sentence may be separated both by the caesura and the pause at the end of the line. The syntactical connexion between the parts of a sentence thus broken up makes the unity of the parts clear, and when the division occurs in the caesura between the two halves of the verse, the alliteration common to both hemistichs serves further to emphasize this unity.
The single alliterative lines are connected with one another by the prevailing usage of ending the sentence not at the end of the completed line, but at the end of the first hemistich or in the middle of the line, and of beginning a new sentence with the second hemistich. The great variety of expression, and the predilection for paraphrase by means of synonyms which is so characteristic of OE. poetry, contribute to make such breaks in the line easy. Whatever may be the explanation, it is certainly the fact that in the OE. poetry the metrical and syntactical members do sometimes coincide, but at other times overlap in a way which does not admit of being reduced to rule.[86]
The Lengthened Verse
§ 37. Besides the normal four-beat line (with two beats to each hemistich) there is in OE. and Old Saxon another variety, the lengthened line (Schwellvers) with three beats in each hemistich.[87] These verses occur in almost all OE. poems, either isolated or more commonly in groups, and occasionally we find lines with one hemistich of two beats and the second hemistich of three, like.
gā́stes dúgeðum þǣ́ra þe mid gā́res órde. Gen. 1522,
and Jud.96, Crist1461, &c., or with a lengthened hemistich of three beats and a normal hemistich of two beats, like
bǣ́ron brándas on brýne blā́can fȳ́res. Dan. 246,
and Sat.605, Gnom. Ex.200, &c.