Stanzas similar in subject and structure, but without the longer end-verse, may be treated here, as well as some odic stanzas similar in structure (9–18 lines) and in theme, occurring in earlier poets, as e.g. Sidney, Spenser, John Donne, Samuel Daniel, Ben Jonson, Drummond, and Milton. In Modern English poetry there are only some few examples of such stanzas to be met with in translations of Italian canzones; e.g. in Leigh Hunt. The schemes are as follows. Stanzas of nine lines, a b a b5 b c3 c5 d3 D5 (Sidney, Arcadia, p. 388); of ten lines, a a3 b5 b3 c5 c d d3 e e5 (Ben Jonson, Ode to himself, Poets, iv. 607); of eleven lines, a a4 b3 b4 c3 c5 D3 D2 E3 E2 d5 (ib. 611); of twelve lines, a2 b5 b2 a c c5 d d3 e5 f3 f5 e2 (ib. 572), a3 a b5 b3 c c5 d3 d e5 e3 f f5 (Drummond, ib. 664); of thirteen lines, a b3 a5 c b3 c5 c d e e3 d5 f3 f5 (Sidney, Arcadia, p. 394), a b3 c5 a b3 c5 c d e e3 d5 f3 f5 (S. Daniel, The Pastoral, Poets, iv. 225), agreeing in form with the eleventh of Petrarch’s canzones, Chiare, fresche e dolci acque, translated by Leigh Hunt (p. 394) on the scheme, a a3 b5 c c3 b5 b d d3 e4 e5 f4 f5; of fourteen lines, a b c b a c c5 d d3 c e5 f3 f2 e3 (Milton, Upon the Circumcision, ii. 408); of eighteen lines, a b b a5 a3 c d c d5 d3 e e f e5 f f3 G G5 (Spenser, Prothalamium, p. 605). For examples of these stanzas, partly formed on the model of the Italian canzones, see Metrik, ii, §§ 512–15
§ 303. The English odic stanzas have been influenced too, although only in a general way, by the anisometrical structure of the Greek odes. This, however, was only to a slight extent the case in the so-called Pindaric Odes, as the metres usually employed in them were essentially the same, and retained in their composition the same anisometrical character exhibited by the odic stanzas considered in the preceding paragraphs.
There are, however, two groups of Pindaric Odes, viz. Regular and Irregular, and it is chiefly the latter group to which the preceding remark refers.
The irregular odes were possibly modelled on certain non-strophical poems or hymns, consisting of anisometrical verses throughout, with an entirely irregular system of rhymes. We have an example of them already in the poems of Donne, the inventor or imitator of some odic stanzas mentioned in the previous paragraph; it is in his poem The Dissolution (Poets, iv. 38) consisting of twenty-two rhyming verses of two to seven measures on the model
a3 b4 c5 d ~3 b4 a c5 d ~3 e4 e5 f3 f5 e5 g4 g5 h3 h4 i i5 k3 l2 l k5 k7.
A similar form is found in Milton’s poems On Time (ii. 411) and At a Solemn Music (ii. 412). Other examples taken from later poets are quoted in Metrik, ii, § 523. M. Arnold’s poems The Voice (second half) (p. 36) and Stagirius (p. 38) likewise fall under this head.
To the combined influence of the earlier somewhat lengthy unstrophical odes on the one hand, and of the shorter, strophical ones also composed of anisometrical verses on the other, we have possibly to trace the particular odic form which was used by Cowley when he translated, or rather paraphrased, the Odes of Pindar. Owing to Cowley’s popularity, this form came much into fashion afterwards through his numerous imitators, and it is much in vogue even at the present day.
The characteristic features of Cowley’s free renderings and imitations of Pindar’s odes are, in the first place, that he dealt very freely with the matter of his Greek original, giving only the general sense with arbitrary omissions and additions; and, in the second place, he paid no attention to the characteristic strophic structure of the original, which is a system of stanzas recurring in the same order till the end of the poem, and consisting of two stanzas of identical form, the strophe and antistrophe, followed by a third, the epode, entirely differing from the two others in structure. In this respect Cowley did not even attempt to imitate the original poems, the metres of which were very imperfectly understood till long after his time.
Hence there is a very great difference between the originals and the English translations of Cowley, a difference which is clear even to the eye from the inequality of the number of stanzas and the number of verses in them.
§ 304. The first Nemean ode, e.g. consists of four equal parts, each one being formed of a strophe and antistrophe of seven lines, and of a four-lined epode; twelve stanzas in all. Cowley’s translation, on the other hand, has only nine stanzas, each of an entirely different structure, their schemes being as follows: