Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/189

 9"- s. vm. AUG. si, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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figure of report, thus described by Putten- ham in * The Arte of Poesie ' :

"Repetition in the first degree we call the figure of Report according to the Greeke origin all, and is when we make one word begin, and as they are wont to say, lead the daunce to many verses in sute, as thus.

To think on death it is a miserie,

To think on life it is a vanitie :

To think on the world verily it is,

To think that heare man hath no perfit blisse. " And this written by Sir Walter Raleigh of his great mistresse in most excellent verses. In vayne mine eyes in vaine you waste your teares, In vayne my sighs the smokes of my despaires : In vayne you search th' earth and heauens aboue, In vayne ye seeke, for fortune keeps my love."

Examples of Shakespeare's use of this figure abound in his works. I will quote two passages and refer to others : Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force, Some in their garments, though new fangled ill, Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their

horse. Sonnet XCI.

God ! methiriks it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain ; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run, How many make the hour full complete ; How many hours bring about the day ; How many days will finish up the year ; How many years a mortal man may live.

'3 Henry VI., 'II. v.

In these passages Shakespeare uses the figure of report, making one word begin and lead the dance "to many verses in sute"; and in the passage from ' Henry VI.' he also uses climax, or the marching figure, for he makes one word proceed double to the first that was spoken : thus minute proceeds double to minutes, hour to hours, day to days, and year to years. In Archiv. f. n. Sprachen and in 'Shakespeare illustrated by Old Authors ' I have given examples of Shakespeare's use of climax or the marching figure, but I do not think that I have before given examples of Shakespeare's putting two of the figures into one.

There is another sort of repetition called antistrophe, or the counter turn, which Puttenham thus describes :

" Ye have another sort of repetition quite con- trary to the former when ye make one word finish many verses in sute, and that which is harder, to finish many clauses in the middest of your verses or dittie (for to make them finish the verse in our vulgar it should hinder the rime) and because I do finde few of our English makers use this figure, 1 have set you down two little ditties which our selves in our ypnger yeares played upon the Anti- strophe, for so is the figures name in Greeke : one upon the mutable love of a Lady, another upon the meritorius love of Christ our Saviour, thus.

Her lowly lookes, that gave life to my love, With spitefull speach, curstnesse and crueltie : She kild my love, let her rigour remove, Her cheerfull lights and speaches of pitie Revive my love : anone with great disdaine, She shuniies my love, and after by a traine She seeks my love, and faith she loves me most, But seing her love, so lightly wonne and lost : I longd not for her love, for well I thought, Firme is the love, if it be as it ought. The seconde upon the merites of Christes passion toward mankind, thus,

He that redeemed man : and by his instance wan Grace in the sight of God, his onely father deare, And reconciled man : and to make man his peere Made himselfe very man : brief to conclude the case, This Christ both God and man, he all and onely is : The man brings man to God and to all heavenly

blisse.

The Greekes call this figure Antistrophe, the Latines, conversio, I following the originall call him the counterturne, because he turnes counter in the middest of every meetre."

Shakespeare sometimes makes one word finish many clauses in the midst of his verses. I give two examples : Let him have time to tear his curled hair, Let him have time against himself to rave, Let him have time of Time's help to despair, Let him have time to live a loathed slave, Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave, And time to see one that by alms doth live Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.


 * Lucrece.

She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth ; She burn'd out love, as soon as straw out-burneth ; She fram'd the love, and yet she foiled the framing ; She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.


 * The Passionate Pilgrim.

Shakespeare in these passages puts the figure of report (anaphora) and the counterturn (antistrophe) into one, for he not only makes one word begin and lead the dance to many verses " in sute," but he also makes one word finish many clauses in the midst of his verses time, love ; and it may be considered worthy of notice that in the passage I have quoted from ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' Shakespeare finishes several clauses in the midst of the verses with the word love, which Puttenham uses in one of the little ditties he gives in illustration of this, figure, the counterturn. For examples of anaphora or the figure of re- port in Shakespeare's works seeSonnetLXVL, where " and " leads the dance to many verses " in sute " ; and also ' Lucrece,' lines 883 and 894, 918 to 921 ; arid, in fact, see the whole of Shakespeare's works passim.

W. L. RUSHTON. (To be continued.)

MISTAKES OF AUTHORS. That capital book ' The Cloister and the Hearth ' was highly praised by the late Sir Walter Besant, who