Than the soft myrtle; ‸ but man, proud man.
The versification of the whole play, however, is peculiar, and this metrical anomaly may have been deliberate.
The older writers on versification, leaning heavily on the traditional prosody of Greek and Latin, made much of the cæsura or pause, especially in blank verse. As has already been frequently suggested, the varied placing of the pause is one of the commonest means of avoiding monotony and giving freedom and fluency to the verse, but it is often also a means of fitting the verse to the meaning. Since the pause comes most frequently near the middle of the line, when it occurs within the first or the last foot there is some special emphasis intended, as in Milton's—
Before him, such as in their souls infix'd
Plagues.
Paradise Lost, VI, 837 f.
Last
Rose as in dance the stately trees, and spread.
Ibid., VII, 323 f.
For Milton these were rather bold and unusual. Later poets have made them familiar, but no less effective. Note Swinburne's repeated use in Atalanta in Calydon—
His helmet as a windy and withering moon
Seen through blown cloud and plume-like drift, when ships
Drive, and men strive with all the sea, and oars
Break, and the beaks dip under, drinking death.[97]
Except in these two places, however, there is seldom a very particular effect sought. That there can be even a good deal of regularity without stiffness or monotony is plain from a passage like Paradise Lost, II, 344 ff.[98] The presence of several pauses in a line produces a broken, halting, retarded effect, as—
Through wood, through waste, o'er hill, o'er dale, his roam.
Paradise Lost, IV, 538.