Where the sharpe accent falles more tunably vpon [graunt]
[peace] [long]
[dure] then it would by conuersion, as to accent then
thus:
Go-d grau`nt — thi-s pea`ce —
ma-y lo`ng — e-ndu-re.
And yet if ye will aske me the reason I can not tell it, but that it shapes so to myne eare, and as I thinke to euery other mans. And in this meeter where ye haue whole words bissillable vnbroken, that maintaine (by reason of their accent) sundry feete, yet going one with another be very harmonicall.
Where ye see one to be a trocheus another the
iambus, and so entermingled not by election
but by constraint of their seuerall accents, which
ought not to be altred, yet comes it to passe that
many times ye must of necessitie alter the accent
of a sillable, and put him from his naturall place,
and then one sillable, of a word polysillable,
or one word monosillable, will abide to be
made sometimes long, sometimes short, as in this quadreyne
of ours playd in a mery moode.
Geue me mine owne and when I do desire
Geue others theirs, and nothing that is
mine
Nor giue me that, wherto all men aspire
Then neither gold, nor faire women nor
wine.
Where in your first verse these two words [giue]
and [me] are accented one high th’other
low, in the third verse the same words are accented
contrary, and the reason of this exchange is manifest,
because the maker playes with these two clauses of
sundry relations [giue me] and [giue others]
so as the monosillable [me] being respectiue
to the word [others] and inferring a subtilitie
or wittie implication, ought not to haue the same
accent, as when he hath no such respect, as in this
distik of ours.
Pro-ue me` (Madame) ere ye re-pro`ue
Meeke minds should e-xcu`se not a-ccu`se.
In which verse ye see this word [reprooue,]
the sillable [prooue] alters his sharpe accent
into a flat, for naturally it is long in all his singles
and compoundes [reprooue] [approoue]
[disprooue] & so is the sillable [cuse]
in [excuse] [accuse] [recuse]
yet in these verses by reason one of them doth as
it were nicke another, and haue a certaine extraordinary
sence with all, it behoueth to remoue the sharpe accents
from whence they are most naturall, to place them where
the nicke may be more expresly discouered, and therefore
in this verse where no such implication is, nor no
relation it is otherwise, as thus.
If ye re`pro-ue my constancie
I will excu-se you curtesly.


