counter-challenge, "Nay, answer me; stand and unfold yourself" in which he reminds Bernardo that he, not Bernardo, is on duty, makes it clear that the latter has allowed his apprehension and excitement to get the better of his judgment. Even though the lines are being read for the first time, and the reader is ignorant of the situation, which is explained in the subsequent conversation, the accurate rendering of Francisco's speech will make him aware of the fact that, for some reason, both men are strangely alert and apprehensive of some ominous event. And this accurate rendering depends upon observing the metrical construction. It will be observed also that the effect of excitement is heightened by the short speeches of the two

men.

Note how attention to the metrical beat in the following quotations helps to an accurate and forceful rendering of the lines. Were the sentences read as prose, more or less hastily, the importance of the words metrically emphasized in the verses might easily be overlooked.

O that a man might know

The end of this day's business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,

And then the end is known.

Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar, v, i.

For Brutus only, overcame himself,

And no man else hath honor by his death.

Ibid., V, V.

You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case.

Ibid., IV, iii.

He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,

Even there where merchants most do congregáte,
On me, my bargains, and my well-worn thrift,

Which he calls interest. Cursèd bé

If I forgive him!

tribe

Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, 1, iii.

2. Line length. a. As it is essential that the rhythm of metrical beats should be observed in reading poetry, it is likewise important that the reader should regard the individual lines, or verses, of a poem as integral parts of it, and he should be careful to preserve, whenever possible, the integrity of the line as a whole. Generally speaking the rhetorical or sense pause falls with the usual verse pause at the end of the line, as in the following:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Shakespeare: Hamlet, 1, iii.

But there are many instances in which the sense is no complete with the end of the verse and the thought is carried over into the next, in what are known as “

run-on

"lines.

Such constructions are frequent in blank verse. Here is a good example from the Merchant of Venice, I, ii.

Within these two months, that's a month before

This bond expires, I do expect return

Of thrice three times the value of this bond.

The careful reader, in voicing these lines, will mark the end of the verses with a slight suspending of the tone on "before" and "return," and, while guarding against a forced or mechanical rendering, will not sacrifice the pleasurable sense of rhythmic order and completeness to the

demand of prosaic ears. It will be found that the sense of line completeness may sometimes be given by a barely perceptible pause, or by a slight upward inflection, or by a change in pitch, which the sense of the line and the reader's ear must determine. More often, however, the end of the line is indicated, as in the foregoing example, by suspending the voice a little on the metrically accented vowel of the last word of the verse.1 Other examples are:—

And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms,
But heard the call and came; and Guinevere
Stood by the castle wall to watch him pass.

Tennyson: The Coming of Arthur.

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass.

Tennyson: The Lotus-Eaters.

Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel.

ō. It may be worth while, in this connection, to call attention to the tendency of untrained readers of poetry to elide the sometimes metrically accented final syllable "ed" of words in which the syllable is not sounded in prose and

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1 The ability to render run-on "lines with due regard at once to the rhythm and the thought, and with an effect of naturalness withal, comes only with the education of a sense of poetic form and much practice in reading verse aloud.

"It should be noted," says Professor Alden, in his Introduction to Poetry, p. 264, "that, even where there is little or no rhetorical pause indicated, a good reader may easily make a slight metrical pause at the end of the verse without dropping the pitch of the voice and thus injuring the rhetorical expression. No matter how free be the use of run-on lines, poetry is not well read when a listener cannot distinguish it from prose." (The author wishes to acknowledge here his indebtedness in the preparation of this chapter to the volume mentioned, and also to Professor Alden's English Verse. To those interested in the technique and art of poetry these books are especially commended.)

common speech. Usually, when the metre of a line requires the accent of this otherwise suppressed syllable, in such words, for example, as "nourished," the fact is indicated either by placing an accent sign over the syllable, thus: “nourished,” or by the practice of writing "'d” for the "ed" of words in which the syllable is not to be given quantity. In the latter case "nourished," if it is to be sounded as a two-syllable word, would be written "noursh'd." This method implies that all final "ed" syllables not so abbreviated are to be voiced. Thus, in the lines

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

and

it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown,

the final syllable of "strain'd" is elided while that of "throned" is sounded.

The reader should be careful to give quantity to final "ed" syllables whenever the metre and the line length demand it. Note that in the first example given below the sounding of this syllable in "nourished" is required both by the metre and the rhyme.

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?

Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, III, ii.

It must not be; there is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established.

Ibid., IV, i.

In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemèd always afternoon.

Tennyson: The Lotus-Eaters.

33. Rhythm and time

One of the characteristics of rhythm is movement in time. Though all speech rhythm implies some form of metrical arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables, irregular in prose, more regular in verse, the general rate of utterance, or tempo, as it is called in music, is determined by the speaker's mind, the earnestness and intensity of his feeling, and the importance and weight of the thought and the mood induced by it. Within certain limits imposed by vowel quantities of words, any metre may be rendered in any time. While in poetry certain metrical forms are better adapted to the expression of given moods than others, as for example, the three-syllable foot (dactylic as in "mērrĭly"; anapestic, as in "persĕvēre") for spirited, happy emotions, illustrated in such lines as

Hail to the chief who in triumph advances.

Scott: Boat Song, from Lady of the Lake.

As light as the tips of the drops of the rain.

Riley: Out to Old Aunt Mary's.

and the two-syllable foot (trochaic, as in "sōrrow”; iambic, as in "forgēt ") for grave and tragic moods, found

in

Ó the long and dreary Winter!

Longfellow: Hiawatha.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, 1,

the spirit of a poem and the character and significance of its thought are communicated rather through the general time given to the utterance of the lines than through metri