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198 ORTHOMETRY.
There is no more such masters: I may wonder.
" Cymbeline."
(iii) Imperfect lines are admissible, i.e. verses of only one, two, or three feet—rarely four. When these hemistichs, as they are called, come together, they require to be scanned as a continuous line:
• Ophelia. I pray you now receive them. Hamlet. No, not I;
I never gave her aught.
"Hamlet."
Of but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame, where is thy blush ?
" Ha inlet.n
Occasionally, Alexandrines are blended with the five-foot verse:
Hamlet. Honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,— Queen. O, speak to me no more 1
" Hamlet."
(iv) What are known as "light" and " weak" endings are freely used, especially in the choicest specimens of Shakspere's verse. By the former is meant the termination of a line with personal or relative pronouns, or auxiliary verbs, that admit but a very slight pause ; by the latter the verse is ended by prepositions or conjunctions which allow of no break whatever; the line is forced to run |
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