it must rime one and may rime both of the two preceding stressed syllables. The fourth stressed syllable, however,—second in the second half-verse,—must not rime with the third, or rime-giving syllable, but may rime with that one of the other two which happens not to match the rime-giver. For example, in the usual form,—
“Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,”
“foes” rimes with no stressed syllable, as both first and second match the rime-giving third; but in—
“There laid they down their darling lord,”
a cross-rime prevails. It must be remembered that all vowels rime with one another: so,—
“ice-flecked, outbound, atheling’s barge.”
By observing these rules in translation, one may count on a rhythmic movement which fairly represents the old verse. The translation, to be sure, must alternate stressed and unstressed syllables with more “regularity” than can be found in the original, which followed rules of detail now impossible to observe. The preponderance of falling rhythm cannot always be maintained, nor can the translator always keep his rimed verse-stresses on the words to which they belong in the old metrical system. But these are not vital objections. Nothing meets the reader in this old rhythm with which he is not familiar in modern poetry; he recognizes initial rime as an ornamental factor in verse, though he is not wont to find it the controlling factor.
This same statement holds true of the style of the old epic. Modern poetry has occasional variant repetition; but repetition is not the controlling factor, the
