5. Rhyme royal.—Seven lines of heroics, with the last two rhymes successive, and the first five recurring at intervals. Sometimes the last line is an Alexandrine. There are varieties in this metre according to the intervals of the first five rhymes:—
This Troilus in gift of curtesie
With hauke on hond, and with a huge rout
Of knights, rode and did her companie
Passing all the valey far without,
And ferther would have ridden out of doubt,
Full faine, and wo was him to gone so sone,
And tourne he must, and it was eke to doen.
Chaucer's Troilus.
6. Ottava rima.—The metre in Italian for narrative poetry. Eight lines of heroics; the first six rhyming alternately, the last two in succession.—Byron's Don Juan in English, Orlando Furioso, &c., in Italian.