In all these cases n had very probably already fallen off in the speech of the poet, as the following examples lead us to suppose:—178 wynne : him, 1582 dye : biwry, 2309 shewe : trewe, 2107 slépe to lónge, 861 cóme from ál, &c.
As regards the final es of nouns, the poet seems to have observed the same rules as those followed by Chaucer; viz. es is sounded when [‹xl›] joined to monosyllabic stems; it does not increase the number of syllables (and therefore is often spelt-s instead of-es), when the stem has two or more syllables:—197, 277 goddës, 665 nailës, 445 tentës, 2068 tentïs, 174, 1799 hedës, 2032, 2868 swerdës, 2327 wallës, 1209 stedës, 1770 shippës, 2702 somers, 2687, 2591 felowes, 2660 felows, 2412 maydyns, 647, 1597 traytours, 2036 orders, 45 lovers, 2612, 3098 develes, 1072 faderis, 203, 862 sowdons, 881 sarsyns.
The final es of adverbs seems no longer to constitute a separate syllable:—2213 hónged’ els bý, 2786 éls had’ hé, 2109 éllis I may sínge, 1525 élles wol’ hé, 2061 théns, 1783 whens.
METRE AND VERSIFICATION. [◊]
THE poem is composed in four-line stanzas. The arrangement of the rhyme is such that the 1st and 3rd lines rhyme together, and the 2nd and 4th together, which gives the following rhyme-formula: a b a b. The rhyme-endings employed in one stanza do not occur again in the next following.
But it must be noticed that there seem to occur some instances of eight-line stanzas, one of which, beginning at l. 1587, is built on the model employed by Chaucer. Others are arranged differently. Those beginning at ll. 1059 and 1219 show the rhyme-formula a b a b a c a c, in that of l. 1411 the 2nd and 4th lines are rhymed together, and the 5th and 7th, whilst the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 8th, all end with the same rhyme. The formula for the stanzas beginning at ll. 807, 879, 1611 is a b a b c b c b. In the stanza of l. 939 all the pair lines are rhymed together, and the odd ones also, which is the only instance in the poem of eight consecutive lines having only two rhyme-endings, as generally eight lines show four different rhyme-endings, and three only in the passages cited above. But the whole stanza of l. 939 seems not to be due to the author; he has very probably borrowed it from some other poem.[76]
Turning now our attention to the fact that the lines occurring between the Initials or Capital Letters, which are met with in some passages in the MS., are often divisible by eight, we might feel [‹xli›] inclined to regard this as an additional reason for considering the stanza employed in the Sowdan as an eight-line one. Indeed, the portion from the Initial of l. 1679 to the next one of l. 1689 might be taken for one single stanza. The 24 lines from l. 575 (beginning with an Initial) to the next Initial in l. 598 might equally be considered as three stanzas, whilst there are 5 times 8 lines = 5 eight-line stanzas from the Initial of l. 2755 to the next Initial in l. 2795.
In all these instances the supposition of eight-line stanzas would suit the context, as is the case also with other passages. Thus in the following cases it might seem as though eight lines taken together were more closely connected and made better sense than four lines, e. g. ll. 583–598, 1703–1710, 1679–1686, 939–962, 1043–1050, 244 ss., 455 ss., 631 ss., 1059 ss.
But, on the other hand, it must be borne in mind that there are also a great many cases where, as regards the sense, four lines can be considered as an independent whole, when, e. g., the speech spoken by a person is contained in four lines, and the words of another person replying to the first follow in the next four lines. Very often also these next four lines contain only a part of the second person’s reply, so that the remainder of his reply falls into the following stanza. This ‘enjambement’ or continuation of the sense, and sometimes of the syntactical construction from one stanza to another, need not, of course, prevent us from admitting the supposition of eight-line stanzas; as, upon the whole, it is met with in all poems composed in stanzas, and as it is frequently used in Le Morte Arthur (Harleian MS. 2252, ed. Furnivall), which is written in eight-line stanzas; but as there is no instance known of an eight-line stanza containing four different rhyme-endings, which at this supposition it would be the case with the Sowdan, the eight-line stanzas containing either three rhyme-endings, as in Chaucer, or two, as in Le Morte Arthur, and as in some passages of the Sowdan (ll. 1691, 1695, 1699, 1711, 1715), we find Initials placed after four lines, I believe a stanza of four alternately rhyming lines to be the one intended by the composer—a metre which, according to Guest, History of Eng. Rhythms, ii. 317—‘must have been well known and familiar during the fifteenth century.’ The few eight-line stanzas quoted above, may [‹xlii›] then be owing either to the inadvertence of the poet, who somewhat carelessly employed one of the two rhyme-endings of one stanza a third and fourth time in the following one, or, perhaps also, he intentionally retained that rhyme-ending, and he inserted eight-line stanzas amongst those of four verses as a mere matter of variation. It is perhaps not impossible that the retention of this rhyme-ending was not greatly felt.
As regards the rhymes themselves, they are both monosyllabic or masculine rhymes, and dissyllabic or feminine ones. Frequently they are used alternating with each other, as in the stanzas beginning with l. 2755.