The Arte of English Poesie eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 355 pages of information about The Arte of English Poesie.

The Arte of English Poesie eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 355 pages of information about The Arte of English Poesie.

  What made me first so well content
      Her curtesie. 
  What makes me now so sore repent
      Her crueltie._

The Greekes name this figure Symploche, the Latins Complexio, perchaunce for that he seemes to hold in and to wrap vp the verses by reduplication, so as nothing can fall out.  I had rather call him the figure of replie.

  [Sidenote:  Anadiplosis, or the Redouble.]
Ye haue another sort of repetition when with the worde by which you finish your verse, ye beginne the next verse with the same, as thus: 
  Comforte it is for man to haue a wife,
  Wife chast, and wise, and lowly all her life.

Or thus: 
  Your beutie was the cause of my first loue,
  Looue while I liue, that I may sore repent.

The Greeks call this figure Anadiplosis, I call him the Redouble as the originall beares.

[Sidenote:  Epanalepsis, or the Eccho sound,
otherwise, the slow return.]
Ye haue an other sorte of repetition, when ye make one worde both beginne and end your verse, which therefore I call the slow retourne, otherwise the Eccho sound, as thus: 
Much must he be beloued, that loueth much,
Feare many must he needs, whom many feare.

Vnlesse I called him the eccho sound, I could not tell what name to giue him, vnlesse it were the slow returne.

  [Sidenote:  Epizeuxis, or the Vnderlay, or Coocko-spel.]

Ye haue another sort of repetition when in one verse or clause of a verse, ye iterate one word without any intermission, as thus: 
  It was Maryne, Maryne that wrought mine woe.

And this bemoaning the departure of a deere friend.
  The chiefest staffe of mine assured stay,
  With no small griefe, is gon, is gon away.

And that of Sir Walter Raleighs very sweet.
  With wisdomes eyes had but blind fortune seene,
  Than had my looue, my looue for euer beene.

The Greeks call him Epizeuxis, the Latines Subiunctio, we may call him the vnderlay, me thinks if we regard his manner of iteration, & would depart from the originall, we might very properly, in our vulgar and for pleasure call him the cuckowspell, for right as the cuckow repeats his lay, which is but one manner of note, and doth not insert any other tune betwixt, and sometimes for hast stammers out two or three of them one immediatly after another, as cuck, cuck, cuckow, so doth the figure Epizeuxis the former verses, Maryne, Maryne, without any intermission at all.

  [Sidenote:  Ploche, or the Doubler.]
Yet haue ye one sorte of repetition, which we call the doubler, and is as the next before, a speedie iteration of one word, but with some little intermission by inserting one or two words betweene, as in a most excellent dittie written by Sir Walter Raleigh these two closing verses: 
  Yet when I sawe my selfe to you was true,
  I loued my selfe, bycause my selfe loued you.

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The Arte of English Poesie from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.