4. In all these verses the alliteration of the first stress in the second half line, which is essential in Old English, is maintained; but it is sometimes neglected, especially when the alliteration is otherwise well marked:
With héȝe hélme on his héde || his láunce in his hónde (129; cp. 75),
where the natural stress cannot fall on his.
5. So far attention has been confined to the stressed syllables, around which the unstressed syllables are grouped. Clearly the richer the alliteration, the more freedom will be possible in the treatment of the unstressed syllables without undue weakening of the verse form. In the first two lines of Beowulf—
Hwæt we Gárdéna || in géardágum
Þéodcýninga || þrým gefrúnon—
three of the half lines have the minimum number of syllables—four—and the other has only five. In Middle English, with more elaborate alliteration, the number of unstressed syllables is increased, so that the minimum half line of four syllables is rare, and often contains some word which may have had an additional flexional syllable in the poet's own manuscript, e.g.
|| þe sélf<e> chápel 79.
|| árȝeȝ in hért<e> 209.
The less regular first half line is found with as many as eleven syllables; e.g.