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is also shown in the spelling in habb i 5. The anacrusis can be present or absent in each halfline. It is absent in the first half-line of 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and in the second half-line of 6, 8, 9.

The second half-line has always feminine ending (-x) e.g. lore: more dede: rede etc., occasionally Uux e.g. heuene: seuene 27 f., icorene: iborene 105 f., and we must, as said above, look on these endings as 'of two members'.

-X

The first half-line has always masculine ending, a stressed monosyllable x, e.g. wes, beon, eald etc. or two short syllables u e.g. dude 2, (i)-queden 9 etc. Occasionally a word of the form is the last member of the first half-line, but it happens, as in the short couplet of Genesis and Exodus (§ 125), very rarely and the final syllable is then always an unstressed -e (tilde 57, lesse 66, orde 85) and never a fuller syllable -es, -ed. Moreover in a strictly critical edition of the text most of these cases would disappear.

The first half-line of the Poema Morale is in its rhythmical structure much like the verse of Havelok, or rather that of Genesis and Exodus, since feminine endings are very rare. The second halfline is much like the verse with feminine endings of King Horn.

The rime is, of course, feminine always: lore: more dede rede cupe nupe etc., or gliding:

heuene

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iborene icorene. There are

no signs of a conscious use of alliteration; only the usual alliterative formulae, which long continued in the language, appear.

§ 129. Orrmulum.

The same rhythmical scheme, which is used. with some freedom in the Poema Morale, is employed in Orrm's or Orrmin's Orrmulum (c. 1200) with great regularity. In this work there is neither alliteration nor rime. Orrm uses the septenary with great regularity in his long poem, just as his peculiar orthography is regular (he doubles all consonants which follow a short vowel in closed syllables, even in unstressed syllables and in consonantal combinations). Anacrusis and thesis are never omitted and are never disyllabic. cp.

Annd whase | wilenn | shall piss | boc efft operr | sipe | wrítènn.

Himm | bidde icc | þatt het | wrīte | rihht swa | summ þiss| boc himm | téchèþþ|.

All bwerrt ut | affterr þatt itt | iss: uppo piss | firrste |

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Wipp all swillc | rīme alls | her iss❘ sett wipp | all se| fele wórdèss

Annd tatt he | loke | wel batt | he

an | bocstaff | write | twízzéss

E33 whær þær | itt uppo piss | boc! iss | wrĭtenn | o þatt |

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All the 10000 long lines of the poem, which originally contained some 80 000 lines, have exactly the same scheme xxxxx1××1×11×1××1×××× and contain 15 syllables. One line will be sufficient as a sample:

piss | bóc iss | némmnedd | Órrmu lúm: forrpí þatt | Órrm itt | wróhhtè.

The only freedom, which Orrm allows himself, is the elision of a final unstressed vowel before a following vowel or h, e.g. for lufe off Crist, lokę he, tunnderrstanndenn (for to unnderrstanndenn) or the dropping of an initial unstressed vowel after a stressed vowel, e.g. het (for he it).

That the feminine ending must be looked on as two members (-x e.g. wróhhtè, kindè, lénèdd etc.) is proved by the fact that Orrm avoids using disyllabic words with a short root-syllable (uu e.g. hine, tale, sune, lufe) at the end of the verse, where two members (hebung and nebenhebung) are necessary. Such words can fill one member (hebung and senkung) within the verse. In general the verse stress agrees with the natural word stress; only those syllables can be used in the arsis, which are stressed in ordinary speech. But he was occasionally compelled to shift the accent in order to get a regular interchange of arsis and thesis. This is especially seen at the beginning of the verse, e.g. afftérr þe flesshes kinde

Afftérr patt tatt te laferrd Crist nemmnédd Amminadabess wazzn. This is rarer within the

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verse: all puss iss tatt hallzhé goddspell alls iff itt wæré þatt wa35n; especially compounds are so treated, e.g. all þus iss tatt hallzhe goddspell annd forrpi ma33 goddspéll full wel etc. Both stresses, on the first and on the second syllable, occasionally occur in the same verse, e.g. goddspéll iss góddspell nemmnedd o mánnkinn

swa patt itt mannkinn.

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Simple or compound words of three syllables, with a long middle syllable, which in OE. had a strong subsidiary stress, are used by Orrm generally thus: the second syllable becomes the arsis, and the first and third syllables the theses, e.g.: annd onn ennglisshe spache - and all puss piss ennglísshe boc— forr þatt iudíssken passkedazz -annd sume off pa iudíssken men- annd goddspell iss Jesúsess wazzn forr Jesu Christ allmáhhtig godd goddspélles hallze lare - for all mannkinne nede purrh hiss goddcúnnde mahhte etc.; occasionally we find as góddspelléss nezh alle. With this strict regularity in verse structure, especially with this syllable-counting principle, Orrm stands alone, not only in his own time, but in the whole of English Literature, if we except Gower (§ 185) and Hoccleve (§ 196), who are also syllable-counters. Orrm's verse is the verse of a scholar, who had no feeling for the metre of popular poetry, and it has, therefore, had no influence at all on later poets. His orthography, also, found no approval amongst his countrymen.

§ 130. On God Ureisun of vre Lefdi. In some other poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries besides Poema Morale and Orrmulum we find the longer (rimed) couplet, e.g. On God Ureisun of vre Lefdi and De Muliere Samaritana (Schipper's Übungsbuch 8th ed. 106 ff., 114ff.), The Passion of Our Lord (Old English Miscellany, EETS. 49, 37-57), the Josephslied, first published by Heuser (1905) (Bonner Beitr. 17, 83-121) and some shorter poems (cp. Pilch p. 50 ff.) But the septenary is not so regular here as in Orrmulum and Poema Morale. The first half-line has often feminine ending, and the second masculine ending. The regular interchange of arsis and thesis also is wanting. Two or three members of the verse may be united to form a foot, as in Brut and King Horn. An extract from On God Ureisun follows. The feet of two and of three members are shown by accents and vertical lines.

Christes milde | módèr, | seynte || Márìè||,
│mines | liues | léomè, mi | leoue || léfdìè,

|to|be ich | búwè and mine | kneon ich | béiè,
and | al min | heorte | blod to | de ich || óffrìè||.
5 bu ert mire | soule | liht

│mi | lif and | mi to hope,
ih ouh | wúrdie | de mid

10 and ibrouht of | héllè

and mine | heorte | blissèl,

min | heale | mid i wíssè
| alle | mine | míhtè

and singe pe | lófsòng bi | daie | and bi | níhtè];
vor þu me hauest ihólpèn a | ueole | kunne | wísè
in to || páradísè||.
mi | leoue || léfdiè,
pe | hwule | det ich | líuiè].
owen | don de | wúrschipe

ich hit | pónkie | đe, and þónkie | wúllè, Alle | crístène | men

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