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ОглавлениеTú, manguito, en invierno sìrves,
En verano vas á un rincón.
But in songs the fourth syllable should also be stressed.
The seven-syllabled iambic (the heptasyllabic or anacreontic verse) has a necessary accent on the sixth syllable; Villegas:
Quiero cantar de Càdmo.
The perfect type is seen in Villegas:
Las cuèrdas mùdo aprìsa.
In songs the fourth syllable is also stressed. Sometimes the anapæst supplants the iambic, e.g., Villegas:
Sólo cànta mi lìra.
In older Spanish, the alexandrine often consisted of two seven-syllabled iambic verses or half-lines, separated by the cæsura. There might be one or two unaccented syllables after the stressed sixth, and the unaccented syllables did not coalesce with the second half-line, since hiatus, rather than synalœpha, prevailed in Old Spanish; e.g., Berceo:
En esta romería | habemos un buen prado.
El fruto de los árbores | era dulze sabrìdo.
Some modern poets have imitated this alexandrine, avoiding the hiatus, however.
The five-syllabled (pentasyllabic) iambic verse has a xxxvi necessary stress on the fourth syllable. In this line the iambics easily yield to dactyls; e.g., Moratín:
El que inocente
La vìda pàsa
No necesìta
Morìsca lànza,
. . . . . .
Arcos ni aljàba
Llèna de flèchas.
Here, verses 2 and 4 are typical iambic pentasyllables, 1 and 3 have only the requisite accent on the fourth syllable, 5 and 6 are dactylic.
Dactylic verses.—There are examples of a dactylic hendecasyllable; Iriarte:
Cièrta criàda la càsa barría.
The dactylic octosyllable accents the first, fourth and seventh syllables:
Vuèlve la pàz á los hòmbres.
The trochaic octosyllable with the necessary accent of the seventh syllable often becomes dactylic; Meléndez:
Tòdo os adòra en silèncio.
On the dactylic pentasyllable or adonic verse, see below.
Amphibrachs.—Of a single foot are these verses of Espronceda:
Suspìra
La lìra
Que hirió
En blàndo
Concènto, etc.
But Bello objects to considering these short lines as individual verses.
Twelve-syllabled (dodecasyllabic) amphibrachs were xxxvii formerly of much use and were called versos de arte mayor; e.g., Mena:
El cònde y | los sùyos | tomàron | la tièrra
Que estàba en|tre el àgua | y el bòrde | del mùro.
A cæsura divides the line into hemistichs. Properly there should be four accents, viz., on the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh syllables; but the accents of the second and eighth syllables may be lacking.
The cæsura may come immediately after the accented syllable; Mena:
Entràndo tras él | por el àgua decían,
and it may permit of two unaccented syllables before it, though in this case the second hemistich has only five syllables; Mena:
Ni sàle la fúlica | de la marìna.
This and the further fact that synalœpha may occur between the hemistichs; Mena:
Con mùcha gran gènte | en la màr anegàdo,
prove that the two hemistichs really form one verse and not two verses. Still, at times, the cæsura marked an absolute break in the verse, e.g., with hiatus; Mena:
Ya puès, si se dèbe | en èste gran làgo
Guiarse la flota.
Again the first syllable may be lacking in the first amphibrach; Mena:
Mièntras morían | y mièntras matàban.
The nine-syllabled amphibrach is illustrated in Espronceda’s Estudiante de Salamanca:
Y luègo el estrépito crèce
Confùso y cambiàdo en un sòn, etc.
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The six-syllabled amphibrach accents the second and fifth syllables in its perfect type; Moratín:
Ropàjes sutìles
Adòrno le sòn,
Y en èllos duplìca
Sus lùces el sòl.
But in pieces of more familiar import, the first accent may be lacking; e.g., Samaniego:
Plumas, sombrerètes,
Lunàres y rìzos
Jamás en su adòrno
Fueron admitìdos.
Here the first and fourth verses have only the accent of the fifth syllable.
Anapæsts.—These are most common in the verse of ten syllables, with three necessary accents; Iriarte:
Escondìdo en el trònco de un árbol.
Anapæsts are found also in the verse of seven syllables, though this is usually iambic; Meléndez Valdés:
Yo también soy cautìvo;
También yò, si tuvièra
Tu piquìto agradàble,
Te diría mis pènas.
The iambic hendecasyllable or heroic verse.—This ordinarily has eleven syllables, but it may end in an accented syllable and have only ten (verso agudo), or it may have two unaccented syllables at the end, and in such a case will have twelve syllables (verso esdrújulo). The latter two forms are always introduced into a composition according to some design. The typical form with five accents is rare:
Cayó, y el sòn tremèndo al bòsque atruèna.
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All these accents are not necessary, but one of two main schemes of accentuation must be followed; viz., the accents must come on the sixth and tenth syllables, or else on the fourth, eighth and tenth; Rioja:
Campos de soledàd, | mustio collàdo.
Mora:
Sube cual àura | de oloròso inciènso.
In the second scheme the cæsura properly comes after the stressed fourth or the unstressed fifth syllable.
Sapphic verse.—The sapphic is a hendecasyllable which requires that certain accents be present and that certain syllables be short. The full requirements are:
(1) accents on the fourth, eighth and tenth syllables as in a heroic of the second scheme;
(2) an accent on the first syllable;
(3) that the second and third syllables be short;
(4) that the sixth, seventh and ninth syllables be short;
(5) that the first hemistich end in a word stressed on the penult;
(6) that there be no synalœpha at the cæsura; e.g., Villegas:
Dùlcĕ vĕcìno | dĕ lă vèrdĕ sèlva.
Requirements 1, 4 and 5 must be met; the others may occasionally be neglected, thus the accent of the first syllable is lacking in Villegas:
Vital aliènto | dĕ lă màdrĕ Vènus.
Every sapphic is a good heroic hendecasyllable, but not all heroic hendecasyllables are good sapphics, since the latter are heroics subjected to certain conditions.
Adonic verse.—This is a five-syllabled (pentasyllabic) line of dactyls, in which it is required that the first and fourth syllables be accented, and that the second and third be short; cf. p. 177:
Céfĭrŏ blàndo.
Dìlĕ quĕ muèro.
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It is really the first hemistich of a sapphic, and in strophic arrangement the two are always associated; cf. the ode of Villegas, p. 177. The strict laws of the sapphic and adonic are sometimes infringed.
III. Rhyme.—There are two kinds of rhyme; consonantal rhyme, in which both the consonants and the vowels agree (donde—responde), and assonance, in which the vowels alone agree and the consonants are disregarded (muero—puerto). In consonantal rhyme both the consonants and the vowels should agree exactly: sabio—labio, orgánica—botánica. Still, as b and v represent the same sound, they may rhyme together, acaba—esclava, recibo—cautivo.
A word should not form consonantal rhyme with itself; although, at times, a simplex is found rhyming with a derivative (precio—menosprecio) or two derivatives rhyme with each other (menosprecio—desprecio). Similar suffixes (verbal, substantival, adjectival, etc., -aba, -eza, -oso) should not rhyme together any more than can possibly be avoided. Adverbs in mente should not rhyme together. Words similar in sound and form, but distinct in sense, may rhyme: ama (“mistress”) and ama (“he loves”).
A series of assonances is offensive in verses having consonantal rhyme, as that in e—o in these four verses of Garcilaso:
El más seguro tema con recelo
Perder lo que estuviere poseyendo.
Salid fuera sin duelo,
Salid sin duelo, lágrimas, corriendo.
Words having a weak accent or none at all, e.g., the definite article and monosyllabic prepositions, should not appear in rhyme, unless, possibly, in jocose style.
Consonantal rhyme may extend to three or more words (as in sonnets, octaves, terza rima), but combinations of three successive rhymes are not very common. Occasionally xli inner rhyme is found (cf. the Latin leonine hexameter), as in Tirso’s El pretendiente:
Ya sabes que el objeto deseado
Suele hacer al cuidado sabio Apeles,
Que con varios pinceles, con distinta
Color, esmalta y pinta, etc.
As has been said, assonance excludes the rhyme of consonants and requires that of vowels alone, from the accented vowel on: clàro—mármol, blànco—amàron. But in words accented on the third last syllable (esdrújulos) or any syllable farther removed from the end (sobresdrújulos), the syllables between the accented one and the last unaccented one are disregarded; so, cándido—diáfano—párvulo—enviándotelos, all form a good assonance in à—o. In accented diphthongs and triphthongs, agreement of the vowels bearing the accent is the sole requirement: piàno—clàustro, ve—agraciéis. In unaccented diphthongs and triphthongs there is required only agreement of the strong vowels: càmbies—amàreis. Cf. the assonance in è—a in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth lines of this passage from a poem of Moratín’s:
¡Que desgracia!—La mayor
Que sucederme pudièra.
Si me quieras despachar.—
¿La pobre doña Vicènta,
Cómo está?—¿Cómo ha de estar?
Traspasada. Si quisièrais
Despacharme...—Sí, al momento
Iré, si me dais licència.
These main rules are to be observed:
(1) in words accented on the last syllable (agudos), the assonance is that of the accented syllable only, as in Zorrilla:
Abierto tiene delante
Aquel cajón singulàr
Hábilmente preparado,
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Que, mitad cuna y mitàd
Barco, condujo en su seno
Al desdichado rapàz.
(2) words accented on the last syllable (agudos) cannot assonate with those accented on the penult (graves), on the antepenult (esdrújulos), or on any preceding syllable (sobresdrújulos).
(3) the assonance is of two vowels and no more in words accented on the penult (graves), on the antepenult (esdrújulos), or any preceding syllable (sobresdrújulos); cf. the assonance in ù—o in mùstio—fúlgido—púsoselo.
Penults may assonate arbitrarily with antepenults, but the effect is better when penults assonate with penults and antepenults with antepenults. But little use is made in rhyme of words accented on a syllable preceding the antepenult.
In the final unaccented syllable, as the result of an obscured pronunciation, i and u, if not in diphthongs, assonate as e and o respectively, e.g., cáliz—vàlle, débil—vèrde, Vènus—cièlo, espíritu—efímero. Possible assonances are, then, those in á, é, í, ó, ú (a difficult one), à—a, à—e, à—o, è—a, è—e, è—o, ì—a, ì—e, ì—o, ò—a, ò—e, ò—o, ù—a, ù—e, ù—o.
Because of the great difficulty that they present, continuous rhymed antepenults (esdrújulos) have not been much used. In strophic compositions, unrhymed antepenults may terminate certain lines occurring at regular intervals in the poem. Consonant rhyme should be avoided in assonanced poems. In modern Spanish, the assonance of alternate lines is the rule, and, if the composition is short, the one assonance may run all the way through it.
Blank verse.—Lines lacking both consonantal and vocalic rhyme occur and are called versos sueltos (blank verse). Into compositions in verso suelto consonantal rhyme may, however, enter, particularly at the end of the chief sections into which the subject matter is divided.
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IV. Strophes.—The strophe is frequently of arbitrary length, though, when once the poet has fixed the particular measure of his strophe, he is supposed to maintain the same measure throughout his composition.
One of the more common forms is the romance strophe. This generally consists of four verses having the same number of syllables each (normally trochaic octosyllables), and having besides, in the alternate verses, an assonance which remains the same throughout the poem. Cf. on p. 258 the Castellano leal of Rivas, and on p. 148 the Romance of Lope de Vega.
The heroic romance strophe is that consisting of iambic hendecasyllables; Rivas:
Brilla la luz del apacible cielo,
Tregua logrando breve de la cruda
Estación invernal, y el aura mansa
Celajes rotos al oriente empuja.
The Anacreontic is a romance in seven-syllabled verses, dealing with matter of light import; cf., on p. 211, Meléndez Valdés’s Á un ruiseñor. Romances in short lines of less than eight syllables are called romancillos; e.g.:
Blanca y bella ninfa
De los ojos negros,
Huye los peligros
Del hijo de Venus.
The distinguishing features of the romance are, then, (1) the assonance of the alternating lines, and (2) the greater or less pause occurring at the end of every fourth verse. An estribillo, or refrain, may occur at regular intervals in a romance; cf. p. 124, La Conquista de Alhama, and p. 184, Calderón’s Lágrimas. In older Spanish, the romance did not necessarily consist of strophes of four lines, but rather of shorter strophes having two lines only; cf. p. 116, A caza va Don Rodrigo.
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Compositions in seven-syllabled quatrains, dealing with matter of serious or mournful content, are called endechas; and if the last line of each quatrain is a hendecasyllable, they are called endechas reales; e.g.:
¡Ay! presuroso el tiempo
Póstumo, se desliza:
Ni á la piedad respetan
La rugosa vejez, la muerte impía.
The seguidilla is a stanza made up of lines of five and seven syllables arranged in two divisions. The first division consists of a quatrain of alternating seven-syllabled and five-syllabled verses, with the second and fourth verses in assonance. The second division, separated from the first by at least a moderate pause, is made up of three lines, the first and third of five syllables and in assonance, the second of seven syllables. The assonance may vary from stanza to stanza. Cf. Iriarte:
Pasando por un pueblo
De la montaña,
Dos caballeros mozos
Buscan posada.
De dos vecinos
Reciben mil ofertas
Los dos amigos.
Consonantal rhyme, as well as assonance, occurs in the endechas. In the other stanzas thus far described, assonance prevails, although consonantal rhyme is not excluded.
Of ancient as well as modern use is the strophe well illustrated in the Coplas of Jorge Manrique, cf. p. 43. (N.B. In the text, two independent stanzas are printed together as one stanza.) The scheme is that of a strophe of six trochaic verses with consonantal rhyme in the series a b c a b c; lines 1, 2, 4, 5 have eight syllables each, and lines 3 and 6 have four. Sometimes an extra syllable is xlv prefixed to the short lines, making them iambic in character; cf. p. 43, l. 28, p. 46, l. 8.
The letrilla is a strophic composition of short verses and varied structure. The peculiarity is a refrain (estribillo), recurring at regular intervals; cf. p. 214, ll. 19 ff., p. 221, ll. 23 ff. Sometimes there are two refrains that alternate.
The redondilla stanza is a quatrain of eight-syllabled verses (redondilla mayor)—and occasionally of shorter length, especially of six syllables (redondilla menor)—in which verse 1 stands in consonantal rhyme with verse 4, and verse 2 with verse 3; cf. p. 131. Occasionally the rhymes alternate; cf. p. 226, ll. 23 ff.
The quintilla is a stanza of five verses and only two rhymes, the latter being so distributed that not more than two verses with the same rhyme ever come together; cf. p. 95, León’s Vida del campo. The verses may be all of eight syllables, cf. p. 196, Moratín’s Fiesta de toros, or of mingled hendecasyllables and seven-syllabled lines, cf. p. 195.
The décima (cf. p. 181) is a stanza of ten lines, having four rhymes. The usual scheme for rhyme agreement is 1, 4, 5—2, 3—6, 7, 10—8, 9. In this scheme, a pause occurs at the end of the fourth verse.
The tercetos (borrowed from Italy and called in Italian terza rima) are stanzas of three verses—generally hendecasyllables—so constituted that each stanza is connected by rhyme with the following stanza. The rhyme scheme is as follows: a b a—b c b—c d c...d e d e. Cf. p. 163 and p. 193.
Canción (“song”) is a generic name for all lyric compositions. It is also used in a specific way to denote a poem of iambic hendecasyllables, generally intermingled with verses of seven and even of five syllables. Each line of the strophe stands in consonantal rhyme with some other. The poet constructs the typical strophe according to his fancy, but he must make all the others like it. A xlvi short envoi—usually addressed to the composition itself—may end the poem. Cf. p. 70, ll. 7 ff., p. 87, ll. 4 ff.
The octava rima, or octave, is an eight-lined stanza, generally of hendecasyllables, with consonantal rhyme according to the scheme a b a b a b c c. A pause usually occurs at the end of the fourth line, and frequently also at the end of the second and sixth lines. Cf. p. 68, Boscán’s Octava rima. Examples of octaves in eight-syllabled trochaics and seven-syllabled iambics are also found. An older form of the octave was the so-called Copla (“stanza”) de arte mayor, a stanza containing eight lines of four amphibrachs (or twelve syllables) each, and rhyming according to the scheme a b b a a c c a;[2] cf. p. 31.
2: As opposed to the term arte mayor, there was used that of arte menor, applied in general to any verse of not more than eight syllables in length.
The sonnet—a short poem of fourteen hendecasyllables—is of Italian origin and has the conventional Italian forms. It always consists of four divisions, i.e., two quatrains and two tercets, separated from one another by pauses. Two of the commonest arrangements of the rhymes are illustrated by Lope’s Á la nueva lengua, p. 153, and his Mañana, p. 152.
To the composition called versos sueltos, rules hardly apply. While it often consists of iambic hendecasyllables only, or of such verses mingled with seven-syllabled lines, it is really very free in form. Rhyme is only accidental in it; there is no fixed arrangement of verses of different lengths; the position of the pauses is wholly arbitrary. Cf. p. 109, Figueroa’s Tirsi.
There are found other free compositions into which rhyme enters as an essential feature, but which are governed by no law regulating the number and the order of the various kinds of verse, or the distribution of the rhymes and the pauses. Of this class is the silva, composed of iambic hendecasyllables intermingled with seven-syllabled lines. Every verse is made to rhyme by the best xlvii versifiers; but occasionally some lines are left unrhymed; cf. p. 157, Jáuregui’s Acaecimiento amoroso, and p. 170, Rioja’s Á la rosa. There are also silvas with lines of eight syllables or less, having rhyme throughout, but no fixed order of verses; cf. the Cantilenas of Villegas on pp. 175–6.
Many other and quite artificial forms exist, of which space forbids a description. Thus, there are the glosa, cf. p. 82 and p. 135, beginning with a text, a line of which enters into each of the stanzas expounding it; the letra, a poem with short verses and also of the nature of a gloss, cf. p. 59; the madrigal, elaborating a conceit in verses of mingled hendecasyllables and heptasyllables, such as those written by Gutierre de Cetina; cf. p. 73.
Our text also presents examples of certain old forms, originally popular, such as the villancico and the serranilla; cf. pp. 35 and 81. In these the refrain is always an important element.
In more recent times, and especially since the advent of the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century, the caprice of the poet has invented many forms, the arrangement of which is generally self-evident and need not be explained here.
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