§ =153.= This variable position of the caesura is, however, not found in the earliest specimens of this metre presented to us in the two poems in the Harl. MS. 2253 dating from the second half of the thirteenth century, which are edited in Wright's _Specimens of Lyric Poetry_, Nos. xl and xli (wrongly numbered xlii).[149] These are written in tripartite eight-lined, anisometrical stanzas of the form _a4 b3 a4 b3 c5 c5 d7 d5_, in which the fifth, sixth, and eighth lines are evidently of five feet. Ten Brink,[150] it is true, says that he has not been able 'to convince himself that this was a genuine instance of a metre which--whether in origin or character--might be identified with Chaucer's heroic verse, although in isolated instances it seems to coincide with it'. According to my conviction, there is not the slightest doubt as to the structure of these verses as lines of five feet, and Ten Brink has not expressed any opinion as to the nature of the verse to which they must otherwise be referred.[151]
In both these poems there occur only verses of the type indicated by the formulas 3, 4, 7, 12:
3. _His hérte blód | he [gh]éf for ál monkúnne._ xl. 35.
4. _Upón þe róde | why núlle we táken héde?_ ib. 27.
7. _[Gh]éf bou dóst, | hit wól me réowe sóre._ xli. 20.
12. _Bote héo me lóuye, | sóre hil wól me réwe._ ib. 27.
Among the Germanic licences the presence of a disyllabic initial or internal thesis is most noticeable in these which are, so far as is known, the earliest five-foot verses in English poetry; as, e.g. in xli. 33, 34:
_Ase stérres beþ in wélkne, | and gráses sóur ant suéte; Whose lóueþ vntréwe, | his hérte is sélde séete._
§ =154.= The main difference between Chaucer's five-foot verse and these early specimens of this metre is that the caesura does not always occupy a fixed place in it, but is liable to shift its position.[152] It is either masculine, epic, or lyric, and occurs chiefly after the second or in and after the third foot, or in the fourth, so that there are thus (in Chaucer's verse and that of most of the following poets) =six main types of caesura=:
1. Masculine (monosyllabic) caesura after the second foot; the principal kind (types 1 and 3):
_Whan Zéphirús | eek wíth his swéte bréethe._ Prol. 5.