3rd.—The arrangement of these six terminal words follows a regular law (a somewhat complex one, which is replaced in modern poetry by the one given below).
4th.—The piece closes with a three-line stanza, using the six words, three at the end; the other three, placed in the middle of its lines.
But, as now written, the words of the sestina at times rhyme with each other; if so, De Banville says they should be in two rhymes alone (as Mr. Swinburne uses them), but other writers allow three rhymes. But these details all belong to the subtle laws of the verse which it is not possible to include here. De Gramont's Sestines is, perhaps, the best authority for study.
For our purpose, enough to say that the six end-words must repeat unchanged in sound and spelling throughout each succeeding verse. The order in which they occur is best expressed by a numerical formula. If the rules themselves were compressed, a more complex and incomprehensible jargon of firsts and seconds and thirds, etc., could hardly be found. The first verse has, of course, the initial order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; the second, 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3; the third, 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5; the fourth, 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4; the fifth, 4, 5, 1, 3, 6, 2; the sixth, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1; the last half-stanza ends with 2, 4, 6, and uses 1, 3, 5 at the beginning (not the first word always) of the line, or at the half-line in rhymes that permit their introduction there. It will be seen that no end-word occurs more than once in the same place, and that the end-word of every stanza is invariably chosen to take its place as terminal of the first line of the next verse.
As though this feat in rhyming were not complex enough, a double sestina of twelve verses of twelve lines has been sometimes written. There are two, at least, of these tours de force in English—one, "The Complaint of Lisa," in Mr. Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Second Series; another, by Mr. George Barlow, in A Life's Love, entitled "Alone." It was hoped to include these, but the required space in this little book would have excluded so many specimens of smaller poems, that the desire to make this collection as widely varied and representative as possible forbade their quotation.
The Triolet, as we know it, may be regarded as almost an epitome of the other forms, in its limited space. It introduces one refrain three times, and the second refrain twice, keeps strictly to two rhymes, and is inflexible in its laws, brief though it be. One poet says of it, "It is charming—nothing can be more ingeniously mischievous, more playfully sly, than this tiny trill of epigrammatic melody turning so simply upon its own innocent axis." Those who are unaware of the rules that govern this little stanza, yet often fall in love with the verse itself, possibly because a good example has a pretty sequence of sound, that allures the ear by its musical jingle, and reads like a spontaneous and easy impromptu. Nevertheless, the subtle art needed to acquire the ease that is the charm of a good triolet is generally the result of infinite care. Few things are more simple than to write a triolet—of a sort—yet the triolet affords so little space to explain its motif, and within its five lines must tell its story, and also carry the three other repeated ones easily, and with a definite meaning. To introduce the refrain naturally as the only thing to say, and yet with an air of freshness and an unexpected recognition of a phrase heard before, is in itself no mean difficulty, even in the ballade and rondeau; but when it comes three times in eight lines, and has a second line attached to it on its first and last appearance, it is a matter of small wonder that the successful triolets are not very numerous. That the ideally perfect triolet is as yet unwritten, or at least represented by very few, it may be urged; but if that be true, it should only provoke more attempts, one would fancy. It might be pertinent to ask, if this is the chief objection, how many ideally perfect poems in any set shape, or in free form, the world acknowledges?
The triolet consists (to quote Mr. Dobson) of eight lines with two rhymes. The first pair of lines are repeated as the seventh and eighth, while the first is repeated as the fourth. The order of the rhymes is thus as follows:—a. b. a. a. a. b. a. b. The example (on page [214]) by—of all persons in the world—a grave French magistrate, Jacques Ranchin, has been christened by Ménage the "King of Triolets."
The first triolet known is in the Cléomadés of Adenèz-le-Roi (1258-1297), a poem of 20,000 verses. In old examples the triolet was devoted to grave verse, but, as M. de Gramont shows, it has now not only abandoned the old ten syllable lines, and is written in those of eight and often six syllables, but from the elegiac dignity of its former subjects, it has become in French verse the form especially devoted to the most ephemeral and trivial subjects. Since M. de Banville renewed its use, triolets are common in French newspapers, and with all due deference be it said—possibly only thereby exposing my own ignorance of the subtle charm conveyed to their readers by their "argot" and "idiom"—as inferior as they are plentiful. There is one, however, that has justly won great favour since its appearance in Odes Funnambulesques of M. Theodore de Banville.
These two French examples (on page [214]) are hackneyed by frequent quotation, but are so generally regarded as the most successful of their class that it seemed best not to omit them, nor this one by Froissart, given in most authorities, and called a rondeau by the writer (rondel, rondeau, and triolet being evidently regarded as but one form in his day—the beginning of the fifteenth century), and the modern grouping completely unknown:—
Mon coer s'esbat en oudourant la rose
Et s'esjoïst en regardant ma dame.
Trop mieulz me vault l'une que l'autre chose,
Mon coer s'esbat en oudourant la rose,
L'oudour m'est bon, mès dou regart je n'ose
Juer trop fort, je le vous jur par m'ame
Mon coer s'esbat en oudourant la rose
Et s'esjoïst en regardant ma dame.