Often the alliteration may repeat similar, not the same, letters, for example, d and t, or b and p, as in This truth came borne with bier and pall, I felt it when I sorrowed most, "Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all. Ib. It is not to be supposed that poets, in the act of writing poetry, observed any distinct laws of alliteration, or were even aware in all cases that they were employing alliteration at all. They were guided by their ear, and by the traditions of English poetry. It will hereafter be shown that alliteration was an essential part, or rather the basis, of early English poetry. What rhyme is now, that was alliteration then. An ignorance of the traditional importance of alliteration may perhaps account for the harshness of the words of many modern songs as compared with the smoothness of the songs of the seventeenth century. 124. Early English Alliterative Poetry consisted of couplets in which each section contained two or more accented initial syllables. Of these four syllables, the two in the first section, and, as a rule, the first of the two in the second section, were alliterated: I shópe me in shroudës || as I a shépe wérë. Piers the Plowman. "More than two are frequently found in the first half-line, but rarely in the second."--Skeat. It is an exception, and perhaps an accidental one, when both accented syllables in the second section are alliterated: In a sómer séson, || whan sóft was the sónnë. Piers the Plowman. More often, though still an exception, there are more than two alliterative syllables in the first section, and one in the second: Faire floures for to fecche || that he bi-fore him séye (saw). By an exceptional license, unaccented syllables are sometimes alliterated: And with him to wonge (dwell) with wó || whil Gód is in hévene. 125. Influence of Early English Poetry on the Elizabethan Writers.-The introduction of a fourth alliterated letter is a mark of lateness of date in early English poetry. This shows that the taste for alliteration did not vanish with the decay of alliterative poetry. It is true that the introduction of rhyme, supplying a different kind of poetic regularity, diminished the need of alliteration; but alliteration still clung even to rhyming poetry. Rhyme, and not alliteration, was the basis of the French metres, and it is natural to suppose that foreign influence helped much in extending the use of rhyme. As rhyme in itself is a considerable restraint on the free choice of words, rhyme and alliteration together became an intolerable restriction; and alliteration, from being a law, became a custom frequently, but not invariably, observed. Yet the attempt to combine the new rhyming system with the old alliterative system was made. The following example is taken from a poem written about a.d. 1360: A grene hors gret and thikke, A stede full stiff to strayne. In brawden (embroidered) brydel quik, To pe (the) gome (man) he watz (was) ful gayn (useful). Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. There is little difference between this systematic alliteration and the alliteration of some passages in Dryden. But some of the Elizabethan writers use the old alliteration, not as Dryden did, in occasional passages, but continuously. 126. Alliteration in Elizabethan Authors.-The following is a curious example of the original early English alliteration in couplets. The date is about 1600 A.D. Sitting by a river's side, Where a silent stream did glide, Muse I did of many things That the mind in quiet brings. Greene. The same poet sometimes places the double alliteration in the second line: It was frosty winter season And fair Flora's wealth was geason. When I saw a shepherd fold Sheep in cote to shun the cold. Greene. But the effect of the continued alliteration, combined with rhyme, was artificial and hampering in the extreme. Take the following as an example: 1 Lyly's "Euphues" abounds in instances of complicated alliteration. To trust the fayned face, to rue on forced tears To credit finely forged tales, wherein there oft appeares Where only lurkes a depe deceit within the hollow hart. It therefore came to be considered archaic, and when found in excess in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," it must be treated as an archaism. As an archaism, this excess of alliteration is ridiculed by Shakspeare: Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakspeare uses little alliteration in his descriptive verses of four accents (except in the songs); but in the nonrhyming dramatic lines he uses it on occasion with great effect, sometimes in an obvious manner, as: 127. Milton's Alliteration in the "Paradise Lost" is somewhat less marked than in the "Comus" and the smaller poems; but in all his poetry, written in the verse of five accents, he tones down the alliterative effect by often alliterating unaccented syllables. It has been stated that this is an irregular license in early English poetry. Or 'gainst the rugged bárk of some broad élm. (a) (b) Comus. (c) Perhaps some cold bank is her bólster now. Ib. (d) Though sun and moon Wére in the flát sea súnk. Ib. Thus it is Often the alliterative syllables are not initial. impossible not to perceive the force of alliteration in the following line, though only one of the alliterative letters is. initial : Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense. Ib. Alliteration is also disguised (1) when the alliterative consonants are not identical, but similar, as b and p, d and t, r and 1, m and n, c hard and g hard, and the like; (2) when initial syllables alliterate with syllables that are not initial; (3) when the alliterating syllables are not in the same line. We do not intend to do more than direct the reader's attention to the exquisiteness of Milton's versification in this respect. It is pervaded by a continuous and varying alliteration which, without being obtrusive, gives a distinct |