Ó còsan ó làbren ó càiganse muèrtas.
A song of mingled 11-and 12-syllable lines begins thus:
Al pàsar la bàrca, me dìjo el barquèro:
Mòza bonìta no pàga dinero.[39]
Footnote 39:[ (return) ] Cf. Milá, op. cit. In singing pasar, there is apparently a shifting of stress which is not uncommon in songs.
Efforts have been made from time to time to use the ternary movements in erudite verse, but these, for the most part, have proven futile. The most serious and the most successful attempt appears in the use of the copla de arte mayor in the fifteenth century. The copla (metro, versos) de arte mayor consists of mingled 12-and 11-syllable lines arranged in strophes of eight lines, each with consonantal rime according to some definite scheme. The arte mayor verse attained to its most perfect form and its greatest popularity in El laberinto de la fortuna (1444?), by Juan de Mena, of which the following is a strophe:
Amores me dieron corona de amores
porque mi nombre por más bocas ande;
entonçes no era mi mal menos grande,
quando me dauan plazer sus dolores;