—William Sharp.
In the French example the form is seen to be composed of couplets of five syllable lines, all on the same rhyme, separated by single lines of two syllables, also on one rhyme throughout the stanza, which therefore employs but two rhymes. The number of lines in each verse was not fixed, nor the number of verses in the complete poem. The Lai has preserved a curious old tradition in the form it appears either in writing or print. As in the verse quoted, the first letter of each line begins exactly under the preceding one; not with the short line indented—that is coming under the middle of the larger ones—usual in other poems composed of lines of irregular length. This detail was called Arbre fourchu (a forked tree), from the fanciful resemblance of a trunk with bare branches projecting, found by imaginative persons in its appearance on paper.
In the Lai each fresh stanza of the poem has its own two rhyme sounds, without reference to the preceding ones. By curtailing this liberty, and compelling each succeeding stanza to take the rhyme for its longer lines, from the short line of the preceding verse the Virelai is produced.
The Virelai (ancien) is a lai that preserves a sequence of rhymes throughout. For example, in a twelve-line stanza the rhymes are A. A. b. A. A. b. A. A. b. A. A. b. (the long lines being marked by capital letters, and the shorter by small ones). Therefore, to follow the rules of the virelai, the next verse must have its rhymes B. B. c. B. B. c. B. B. c. B. B. c., and the next C. C. d. C. C. d., and so on until the last verse (taking seven verses for an example) would have G. G. a. G. G. a. G. G. a. G. G. a., its short lines rhyming with the two first lines of the poem. Thus each rhyme appears twice, once in its longer couplets, once in the short single lines. In the English examples this rule is preserved, but the length of the lines are frequently varied.
The Virelai (Rhythme d'Alain Chartier) by Boulmier may be quoted as a form yet unused (I believe) in England.
Triste remembrance!
Hé! Dieu! quand i'y pense
Ce m'est grand penance:
Las! de ma iouuence
A passé la flour.
Sanz doubter meschance,
Bercé d'esperance
Plain de desirance
Auecq Oubliance
Ay faict long seiour.
Nice troubadour
Assoty pastour
Serf ie feus d' Amour
Mais de ma folour
Ie n' ay repentance.
Ouyl, maugré Doulour
Bel Aage engignour
En moy fay retour,
Ne fust-ce qu'vng iour...
Et ie recommence.
The rhymes are a, a, a, a, b; a, a, a, b; b, b, b, b, a; b, b, b, b, a. As but one example has come to notice, so it must speak for itself, for it would be unfair to deduce rules from a single specimen. Before leaving this heading there is another form, the Virelai nouveau, singularly unlike its name. It is curious that both the Rondeau Redoublé and this one, masquerading under the names of well-known forms, should be each unlike their unqualified title, and yet so nearly akin to the other.