[123] Horstmann, _Altenglische Legenden_, _Neue Folge_, p. 244.
[125] Quoted in _Chambers's Cyclop. of Eng. Lit._, i. 242.
[126] Ed. by J. Schipper, _Quellen und Forschungen_, xx.
[127] In the 'tumbling'--or, to use the German name, the 'gliding' (_gleitend_) caesura or rhyme.
[128] For the introduction and explanation of these technical terms cf. Fr. Diez, 'Über den epischen Vers,' in his _Altromanische Sprachdenkmale_, Bonn, 1846, 8vo, p. 53, and the author's _Englische Metrik_, i, pp. 438, 441; ii, pp. 24-6.
[129] The occurrence of this licence in Chaucer's heroic verse has been disputed by ten Brink (_Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p. 176) and others, but see _Metrik_, i. 462-3, and Freudenberger, _Ueber das Fehlen des Auftaktes in Chaucer's heroischem Verse_, Erlangen, 1889.
§ =82.= As in Greek and Latin metre, so also in the equal-measured rhythms of Middle and Modern English, it is a general law that the beginning or end of a metrical foot should, so far as possible, not coincide with the beginning or end of a word, but should occur in the middle, so that the individual feet may be more closely connected with each other. When this law is not observed, there arises what is technically called _diaeresis_, that is to say, the breaking up of the line into separate portions, which as a rule renders the verse inharmonious. On this account lines composed entirely of monosyllables are to be avoided. This law is more frequently neglected in Modern English poetry than in that of earlier times, because the rarity of inflexional endings makes its constant observance difficult.
Even in Middle English poems, however, we often find lines, especially if they are short, which are composed of monosyllabic words only.
These observations may be illustrated by the following examples:
_Ne ís no quéne so stárk ne stóur._ Wright's Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 87, l. 4.
_And hé was clád in cóote and hóod of gréne._ Chaucer, Prol. line 103.
_Had cást him óut from Héaven with áll his hóst._ Milton, Parad. L. i. 37.
_Had shóok his thróne. What thóugh the fíeld be lóst?_ ib. 105.
_Nou shrínkeþ róse and lýlie flour._ Wright's Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 87, line 1.
_And smále fówles máken mélodíe._ Chaucer, Prol. line 9.