iii. Silent Time-intervals between Syllables (Pauses)
(a) Pauses not filling the time of syllables.
Most English verses of more than eight syllables are divided not only into the time-intervals between the accents, but also into two parts (which Schipper calls "rhythmical series") by the Cesura. The Cesura is a pause not counted out of the regular time of the rhythm, but corresponding to the pauses between "phrases" in music, and nearly always coinciding with syntactical or rhetorical divisions of the sentence.
The medial cesura is the typical pause of this kind, dividing the verse into two parts of approximately equal length. In much early English verse, and in French verse, this medial cesura is almost universal; in modern English verse (and in that of some early poets, notably Chaucer) there is great freedom in the placing of the cesura, and also in omitting it altogether. The importance of this matter in the history of English decasyllabic verse will appear in Part Two.
In the early Elizabethan period the impression was still general that there should be a regular medial cesura. Spenser seems to have been the first to imitate the greater freedom of Chaucer in this regard. See the Latin dissertation on Spenser's verse of E. Legouis (Quomodo E. Spenserus, etc., Paris, 1896), and the summary of its results by Mr. J. B. Fletcher in Modern Language Notes for November, 1898. "Spenser," says Mr. Fletcher, "revived for 'heroic verse' the neglected variety in unity of his self-acknowledged master, Chaucer." In Gascoigne's Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English (1575), we find: "There are also certayne pauses or restes in a verse whiche may be called Ceasures.... In mine opinion in a verse of eight sillables, the pause will stand best in the middest, in a verse of tenne it will be placed at the ende of the first foure sillables; in a verse of twelve, in the midst.... In Rithme royall, it is at the wryters discretion, and forceth not where the pause be untill the ende of the line." This greater liberty allowed the rime royal is doubtless due to the influence of Chaucer on that form. For Gascoigne's practice in printing his verse with medial cesura, even without regard to rhetorical divisions, see the specimen given below.
Another interesting Elizabethan account of the cesura is found in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589), where the writer compares the verse-pause to a stop made by a traveler at an inn for rest and refreshment. (Arber's Reprint, p. 88.)
Specimen of French alexandrine, showing the regular medial cesura:
Trois fois cinquante jours le général naufrage
Dégasta l'univers; en fin d'un tel ravage
L'immortel s'émouvant, n'eût pas sonné si tôt
La retraite des eaux que soudain flot sur flot
Elles gaignent au pied; tous les fleuves s'abaissant.
Le mer rentre en prison; les montagnes renaissent.
(Du Bartas: La Première Semaine. 1579.)
See further, on the character of the French alexandrine and its medial cesura, in Part Two, under Six-stress Verse.