Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/133

* KHYME. 118 KHYNCHOCEPHALIA. and in Anglo-Saxon poetiy usuallj- consisted of a tliiee-fold repetition of the alliterated sound, as in the third and fourth lines of the lirst (juola- tion above given. Endrhvnies, on the other liand, may he completed within a single verse, but are ordiiuirily between two or more X'erses, the num- ber being deterniined by the stanzaic structure or the taste of the poet; in the rondeau, for in- stance, one rhyme is repeated eight limes and the other live. JCot infrequently poems are con- structed having both st.yles of rhyme, as in Shelley's Cloud: I bring fresh showers for the thirsting Sowers, Fr;ht slmtlp for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams, Khymes, of whatever sort, are in modern poetry always placed upon accented sj-llables, and end- rhTOies are characteristically placed either at the end of the verse or at the end of the colon, as in the first and third verses here given. They may, however, be placed elsewliere, even at the beginning of the verse, as in the second citation from Lanier's Symiihoni/. In complicated striic- ttires they are often used with less regard to reguhirity. internal rhymes being carried on in verse endings, or placed within the verse itself without regard to ciesural pauses. In general, however, internal rhymes irregularly placed con- vey an eflfeet of assonance rather than of trtie rhyme, and many poets make use of assonance in ])ieference to it, when so placed. As to the relation of rhyming verses, this is determined either by the form of the stanza or in non-stan- zaic rhymed comjjosition by some set order, as the couplet, which the poet ma3' determine, or again the rhymes may occur irregularly. Stanzas are of indefinite variety, and the poet is at liberty to invent whatever forms may please his ear. Not all langviages agree as to the nature of the adequate rhyme. In English, -words which rhyme perfectly must agree in all the sound ele- ments succeeding the initial element of the last accented syllable, and in this element they must differ. In French, on the other hand, such a rhyme is only suffisnnie, the riche or perfect rhyme having identical all the elements in the rhyming syllables. Thus, (jroirs and rose form a perfect rhyme in English, rose and arrose in French. Rarely in English an identical rhyme is used provided the sense be changed, as reign with rein, lo with loir (change of sense is also always necessary in French ), but the change nitist be more than a mere negation ; in no case should close and disclose be rhymed, nor words having the same root, as compute, dispute. When a word is repeated to rhyme with itself, as is fre- quently the case in Poe's poems, for example, it has the value of a refrain rather than of a true rhyme, and in all such cases there should be at least one other word rhymed with it. There are a few words in English the pronunciation of Ahich may be altered to suit the needs of rhyme : thus, uind (noun) may be rhymed with blind, etc., but this is only a form of poetic archaism, reverting to the original pronunciation of_ the word. Rhymes are 'masculine' and 'feminine;' masculine when the rhymed syllable is also the chief accent of the word, aver, deter; mar, tar; feminine when it is followed by tuiaccented syl- lables, marry, tarry; tenderly, slenderly. Some- times a secondary accent is made to carry the rhyme, but in such cases it is generally rhymed with a woril having no great rhetorical stress or having other words rhyntcd with it. The use of feminine rhjines is the les.s coinmun in ICng- lisii, and they are never to he found in the com- plicated form to be met with in some other Ian- gtiages. (Compare the Persian nn<h'r KcuAiy.VT.) They occur most freely in satiriial verse, which often takes liberties with rhyme that no serious poetry could tolerate. An example from Lowell is: Though you brag of your New WorlJ, you ilou't half lielleve in It; Aud as uiUL-h of the Old as is pOMnllilo wcovd In It. Rhyme was of relatively slight value in verse which depended upon quantity rather than accent and in languages which abounded in eIaI)orate inllections. It was not until the classi- cal Latin gave way to the vulgar speech that rhyme became the rule, first in the early hymns of the Christian Church. It is possible that an ancient Celtic inlluence may have aided this development, since the Celts used rhyme in the oldest Celtic poetry preserved to us. Uhyme w^as elaborately developed among the Per- sians and Arabs of media'val times, lint it is not known from wliat inthumce it was derived. It seems most probable that the simple repetitions, in w'hich most primitive poetry abounds, form the basis from which rhyme naturally arises. Consult: Corson, Primer of Enfilish Verse (Bos- ton, 1893) ; Gummere, Handbook of I'oetivs ( Hos- ton, 18U5) ; Schipper, Englische Metrih (lionn, 1881-88') . KHYNCHOCEPHALIA, rin'k,*>se-fa1I-A (Xeo-Lat. nom. pi., from Ck. l>vyxos, rhynchos, snout -|- KeipaXri, kepliair, head). An order of primitive reptiles, represented in modern limes by a single survivor, Sphcnodon or llatteria, which lives on islands olT the coast of New Zea- land, and in ancient times by a large number of creatures whose fossil remains are found in Per- mian, Jlesozoic, and Eocene rocks. This oriler received its name from the beak-like rostrum on the skulls of some of its typical species. It in- cludes the earliest and most primitive reptiles, and also the birds. The suborder Pioterosauria, BHYNCHOCEPIIALIA. I, Skull of Palaeohattcria. superior a.spwt; 2. the hhuio, lateral aspect : 3, a dorsal vprtcbra of Xnnaaurua clavlger: c, centrum ; J. jugal ; m, maxilla ; q, quadrate bone. or Prog.tnosauria, includes the most primitive forms, in which the teeth are of unifcuTii shape and parts of the skeleton are still cartilaginous. Paheohatteria from the Lower Permian of Sax- ony is the earliest known rejitile. It had a lizard-like body about 18 inches long, with a long tail, large head, very large eyes, and numerous large conical teeth that are fused with the jaw- bones, and also small teeth on the palate. The