Xxv. The Enjambed Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)

(a) Spenser.

The very opening of Mother Hubberd's Tale (1591), quoted above (p. 62) in its stopped aspect, shows the way to enjambment:

It was | the month | in which | the right|eous Maid, That for | disdain | of sin|ful world's | upbraid, Fled back | to heaven.

And we have, further, an instance as shocking to "regular" prosodists as anything in the seventeenth century:

Whilome, | said she, | before | the world | was civil, The Fox | and th' Ape, | dislik|ing of | their evil And hard | estate.

(b) Marlowe--as remarkable in Hero and Leander for this as for "single-moulding" in blank verse:

Where the ground Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves Sweet-singing mermaids sported with their loves On heaps of heavy gold.

(c) Drayton began with fairly separated couplets; but indulged in overrunning later, as in David and Goliath:

Grim vis|age war | more stern|ly doth | awake Than it | was wont | and fur|ĭŏusly̆̄ Her light|ning sword.

(d) Browne:

It chanced one morn, clad in a robe of grey, And blushing oft, as rising to betray, Enticed this lovely maiden from her bed (So when the roses have discoverèd Their taintless beauties, flies the early bee About the winding alleys merrily) Into the wood, and 'twas her usual sport, Sitting where most harmonious birds resort, To imitate their warbling in Aprìl, Wrought by the hand of Pan, which she did fill Half full of water.

(The actual verse-sentence does not end for another half-dozen lines; but the scansion is so perfectly regular that it seems unnecessary to mark it. "Aprìl" is quite Spenserian, and has both Latin and French justification.)

(e) The later seventeenth-century enjambers:

Chalkhill. The rebels, as you heard, being driven hence, Despairing e'er to expiate their offence By a too late submission, fled to sea In such poor barks as they could get, where they Roamed up and down, which way the winds did please, Without a chart or compass: the rough seas Enraged with such a load of wickedness, Grew big with billows, great was their distress; Yet was their courage greater; desperate men Grow valianter with suffering: in their ken Was a small island, thitherward they steer Their weather-beaten barks, each plies his gear; Some row, some pump, some trim the ragged sails, All were employed and industry prevails.

(Thealma and Clearchus, 2203-2216.)

Marmion. When you are landed, and a little past The Stygian ferry, you your eyes shall cast And spy some busy at their wheel, and these Are three old women, called the Destinies.

(Cupid and Psyche, iii. 259-262.)

Chamberlayne. But ere the weak Euriolus (for he This hapless stranger was) again could be By strength supported, base Amarus, who Could think no more than priceless thanks was due For all his dangerous pains, more beastly rude Than untamed Indians, basely did exclude That noble guest: which being with sorrow seen By Ammida, whose prayers and tears had been His helpless advocates, she gives in charge To her Ismander--till that time enlarge Her than restrained desires, he entertain Her desolate and wandering friend. Nor vain Were these commands, his entertainment being Such as observant love thought best agreeing To her desires.

(Pharonnida, IV. iii. 243-256.)

(The same remark applies here as to Browne. Some of these poets are indeed great "apostrophators," such things as "t'" for "to," "b'" for "by," and "'s" for "his" being common. But these uglinesses are generally resorted to in order to attain or keep the strict decasyllabic. Chalkhill (an actual Elizabethan, if he was anything) is less shy of at least apparent trisyllabics, as in "bĕĭng drīv|en," "ex|pĭăte thēir.|" The double rhyme of "sea" to "they" and "seas" to "please" is worth noticing; v. sup. Rule 34, p. 34.)