Masc. rhymes. "Sortons; qu'en sûreté j'examine avec vous Pour en venir à bout les moyens les plus -(End of Act II.) "Lui-même il m'a tout dit: leur flamme est Fem. doux." mutuelle, Il adore Emilie, il est adoré d'elle." -(Beginning of Act III.) "Et quoi donc?-Qu'il achève et dégage sa foi, Et qu'il choisisse après de la mort, ou de moi." -(End of Act III.) "Tout ce que tu me dis, Euphorbe, est incroyable, Seigneur, le récit même en paroît effroyable." -(Beginning of Act IV.) "Si dans le bien mon bras, justement irrité, Peut laver le forfait de t'avoir écouté.” -(End of Act IV.) "Prends un siège, Cinna, prends et sur toute chose Observe exactement la loi que je t'impose." -(Beginning of Act V.) SPECIAL RULES CONCERNING RHYME Rhyme being originally intended for the ear, and afterwards obliged to satisfy the eye also, it came to pass that theorists have inflicted on poets a series of rules which the latter observe to the best of their powers. A. We will first examine the rules for the ear. 1. A short vowel may not rhyme with a long one; e.g. I châsse and chasse, jette and bête, limes and vîmes, volutes and voulûtes may not rhyme. 2. A simple vowel does not rhyme well with a group of vowels; e.g. livre is a weak rhyme to cuivre, but rhymes satisfactorily with ivre and givre, as does cuivre with suivre. 3. A word ending in mute consonant should not rhyme with a word ending in sounded consonant; e.g. luit with huit, venus (from venir) with Vénus, amer with ramer,1 1 This rhyme is found frequently in the seventeenth century, when the words actually did rhyme the infinitive in -er being pronounced as in amer. This rhyme is often called normande, this pronunciation being common in Normandy. messieurs with meilleurs, transepts with cent ceps. Cf. the following lines from Victor Hugo's Légende des Siècles, where the rhymes are very weak: "Il regarda celui qui s'avançait et vit, Comme le roi Saül lorsque apparut David, Une espèce d'enfant au teint rose, aux mains blanches”. 4. A word ending in one mute consonant should not rhyme with a word ending in another mute consonant. 5. To the end of the eighteenth, and in the works of the minor poets of the nineteenth century, one finds the diphthong oi rhyming with ai, e.g. je sois and je sais. This rhyme was justifiable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when or was pronounced wé, or even é, la loi was pronounced lwé, froid was pronounced fré.1 It is no longer allowed in modern French poetry. B. The rule for the eye can be expressed as follows:A word ending in a mute consonant, or group of consonants, may not rhyme with a word which does not end in that consonant or group; consequently, a singular word cannot rhyme with a plural: lions rhymes with oublions, but not with Sion; nor does lion rhyme with oublions; still less then will avait rhyme with devaient, and donne will neither rhyme with abandonnes nor with abandonnent. Exception 1.-Words ending in c and g rhyme together, as do those ending in d and t, when these consonants are mute; e.g. grand rhymes with gant, but not with sang; franc rhymes with rang, but not with grand. Exception 2.—Words ending in s, x, z rhyme with words ending in a consonant or group of consonants, such as will in 'liaison' with another word produce a sibilant sound; e.g. soldats rhymes with cédas, bœufs with deux, nez with soupçonnés, corps with sorts or with dors. So ennuis rhymes well with nuits, but not with nuit. Cf. V. Hugo's Légende des Siècles; L'Amour. 1 This pronunciation is still found in certain parts of Normandy. In English we get 'straight' (Fr. estroit, Lat. strictus, in which the O.F. pronunciation of oi has been kept back (ai)). Many authors still write roide for raide. The Revue des Deux Mondes does not accept any other spelling for this word. "O libres oiseaux, fiers, charmants, purs, sans ennuis, Vous dites à l'aurore, aux fleurs, à l'astre, aux nuits: Est-ce qu'on ne peut pas aimer quand on est homme?" And again: "Donnez l'exemple, oiseaux! Les vierges aux yeux doux Vous regardent, ayant des ailes comme vous. Such are the laws fixed by grammarians, and scrupulously obeyed by conscientious poets. The real tendency is, however, to consider that rhyme is intended principally for the ear. This is the case with such dramatists as E. Augier, J. Richepin, F. Coppée, and E. Rostand, and other poets, such as Henri de Régnier and A. Boschot. At the present day a standard of rational liberty is being raised to which the public taste is quickly growing accustomed. C. There is, in addition to this, a series of generally accepted rules, based not on sound, but on sense. These have been laid down as follows by De Banville: "Vous ferez rimer ensemble autant qu'il se pourra des mots très semblables entre eux comme son, et très différents entre eux comme sens ("you will use for your rhymes words very similar in sound, but widely differing in sense"). From this general principle it follows in the first place that a simple word with its compound word, or the derivatives with other derivatives and compounds of the same word, should not be rhymed. Such words as tiens and entretiens, abstiens, contiens, and soutiens, are too easily rhymed and not sufficiently striking to the mind. So with tu livres and tu délivres, suivre and poursuivre. In the next place, the rhymes of two grammatical forms, such as two adjectives, two adverbs, or two verbs having identical endings (infinitive with infinitive, participle with participle, &c. &c.), should be avoided. In Act iii, scene 2 of Les Femmes Savantes, Molière, in order to show the bad taste of the Précieuses, gives us the following: Trissotin: "Votre prudence est endormie De traiter magnifiquement Et de loger superbement Philaminte: "J'aime superbement et magnifiquement, Ces deux adverbes joints fort admirablement." It is, however, dangerous to generalize, as appears from the following example, in which the succession of twelve infinitives rhyming together at the end of the even lines produces a beautiful effect. "AU BORD DE L'EAU "S'asseoir tous deux au bord d'un flot qui passe, Tous deux, s'il glisse un nuage en l'espace, A l'horizon, s'il fume un toit de chaume, Aux alentours, si quelque fleur embaume, Si quelque fruit, où les abeilles goûtent, Si quelque oiseau, dans les bois qui l'écoutent, Entendre au pied du saule où l'eau murmure 1 In this piece the rhyme used is called "grammatical": it consists in repeating one word of one line in the next with another form of inflexion or derivation. In fine, words having a different meaning but the same spelling are allowed as rhymes: livre (book) and livre (pound) and livre (imperat. of livrer); tour (tower) with tour (a trick); page (a boy) with page (of a book); pas (a step) with pas (not); point (a point) with point (negative); franc (frank) with franc (10d.); été (summer) with été (been). CHAPTER V ALLITERATION OF CONSONANTS AND VOWELS The repetition of the same consonant, or of the same vowel sound, which is termed alliteration, cannot constitute by itself a form of poetry in French as it did in early English. Such repetition of consonants and vowels serves only as an ornament to French verse, which is constituted, as has been shown, by the number of syllables, the occurrence of the cæsura, and by rhyme. Alliteration is only intended to reinforce the ideas expressed in the verse. the mind of the sensitive poet the vowels and consonants which produce certain effects occur more or less rapidly, though unconsciously, grouped in words or series of words. In the following line from Racine:- "Tout m'afflige et me nuit et conspire à me nuire", -Phèdre, i, iii. Το the repetition of the vowel i in m'afflige, nuit, conspire, at each cæsura, the occurrence of ui at the strong cæsura and the end of the line, the assonance of nuit and nuire, the internal rhyme of conspire and nuire, the alliteration of m in m', me, me, of n in nuit, nuire, all combine to give the idea of melancholy expressed by Phèdre, knowing that a higher force is persecuting her. When she recalls the misfortunes of the family to which she belongs, she exclaims: "Ariane, ma sœur, de quel amour blessée Vous mourûtes aux bords où vous fûtes laissée!'" -Phèdre, i, iii. |