§ 47. Extended types. We now turn to the more numerous class of such couplets or long lines which in both their component hemistichs exhibit extended variations of the five types, resulting from anacrusis or from the insertion of unstressed syllables in the interior of the line. These verses, it is true, are somewhat more homogeneous, and have a certain resemblance to an even-beat rhythm in consequence of the greater number of unaccented syllables, one of which (rarely two or more) may, under the influence of the even-beat metre of the Norman-French original, have been meant by the poet to be read with a somewhat stronger accentuation. We are convinced, however, that in feminine endings, in so far as these are formed, which is usually the case, by the unaccented endings -e, -en, -es, -eþ, &c., these final syllables never, or at most only in isolated cases, which do not affect the general character of the rhythm, have a stronger accent or, as Prof. Luick thinks, form a secondary arsis. As little do we admit the likelihood of such a rhythmic accentuation of these syllables when they occur in the middle of the line, generally of such lines as belong to the normal types mentioned above.
It is convenient, however, to adopt Luick’s formulas for these common forms of Layamon’s verse, with this necessary modification, that we discard the secondary accent attributed by him to the last syllable of the types A, C, D, accepting only his types B and E without any change. We therefore regard the normally constructed short lines of Layamon’s metre—so far as they are not purely alliterative lines of two accents, but coupled together by rhyme or assonance, or by alliteration and rhyme combined—as belonging to one or other of the following two classes: (1) lines with four accents and masculine or monosyllabic endings (types B and E); and (2) lines of three accents and feminine or disyllabic endings (types A, C, D). In this classification those unaccented syllables which receive a secondary stress are, for the sake of brevity, treated as full stresses—which, indeed, they actually came to be in the later development of the metre, and possibly to some extent even in Layamon’s own verse.
Assuming the correctness of this view, the chief types of Layamon’s verse may be expressed by the following formulas, in which the bracketed theses are to be considered optional:
Type A: (×)–́(×)×̀×–́×.
Type C: (×)×̀×–́–́×.
Type E: ×–́(×)×̀××̀×–́.
Type B: (×)×̀×–́(×)×̀× –́.
Type D: (×)–́×–́×̀×.
As these types may be varied by resolutions in the same way as the primary types, there arise various additional formulas such as the following:
A: (×)⏑́×(×)×–́×.