The weaker form of caesura shown in this latter line occurs in at least ten per cent. of the verses in this measure which Froissart gives in the Trésor Amoureux, and the case is much the same with the Balades of Charles d’Orléans, a generation later. Gower, on the other hand, does not admit the unaccented syllable (mute e termination) in the fourth place at all; no such line as this,
‘De ma dame que j’aime et ameray,’
is to be found in his balades. Indeed, we may go further than this, and say that the weak syllable is seldom tolerated in the other even places of the verse, where the English ear demanded a strongly marked accentual beat. Such a line as
‘Vous me poetz sicom vostre demeine’ (Bal. xxxix. 2)
is quite exceptional.
At the same time he does not insist on ending a word on the fourth syllable, but in seven or eight per cent. of his lines the word is run on into the next foot, as
‘Et vous, ma dame, croietz bien cela.’
This is usually the form that the verse takes in such cases, the syllable carried on being a mute e termination, and the caesura coming after this syllable; but lines like the following also occur, in which the caesura is transfered to the end of the third foot:
‘Si fuisse en paradis, ceo beal manoir,’ v. 3.
‘En toute humilité sans mesprisure,’ xii. 4.