(La epopeya del Pacífico)
STROPHES
There are certain conventional combinations of line and rime known by special names. Those used in modern Spanish may best be considered under the heads (I) Assonance, (II) Consonantal Rime, and (III) No Rime.
I. (1) The romance is the most characteristic and national of all Spanish meters. The proper romance consists of 8-syllable lines with assonance in alternate lines[43] (cf. pp. 1-8, 42, etc.). The structure of the romance line has already been treated (p. lxi). In the old romances there was no division into stanzas, but poets from the end of the sixteenth century on regularly employ a pause after every fourth line, thereby creating a series of quatrains (pp. 42, 60, etc.), except in the drama (p. 19).
Footnote 43:[ (return) ] Historically, of i6-syllable lines, all assonating.
(2) Alternate assonance may be employed with lines of any length. With 11-syllable lines the verse is called romance heroico or real. Lines of seven syllables make versos anacreónticos. The name endecha is given to some assonated verse of either six (p. 124) or seven syllables. When the first three lines of a stanza are of seven syllables and the last of eleven, the verse is called endecha real. For examples of alternate assonance in lines of various lengths, see pp. 122 (2 examples), 123, 137, 160, 177.
An estribillo, or refrain, may be used in any assonating verse (p. 45).
(3) The use of alternate assonance in lines of fourteen syllables (pp. 211, 212) is a none too happy device of the author.
(4) The seguidilla is usually a stanza of seven lines of seven and five syllables in length, in this order: 7, 5, 7, 5; 5, 7, 5. There is usually a pause after the fourth line; lines 2 and 4 have one assonance and lines 5 and 7 another. The assonances change from one stanza to another. See pp. 112 and 120. In some seguidillas the stanzas consist only of the first four lines described.