SPANISH VERSIFICATION
Footnote 30: (return) Note the example of hiatus in this older Spanish
Next to the popular 8-syllable line the most important measure in modern Spanish verse is that of eleven syllables, with binary movement, which came to Spain from Italy in the fifteenth century, and was generally accepted by the writers of the Siglo de Oro. This 11-syllable line, though of foreign origin, has held the boards
as the chief erudite measure in Spanish verse for four centuries, and taken all in all it is the noblest metrical form for serious poems in modern Spanish. A striking peculiarity of the line is its flexibility. It is not divided into hemistichs as were its predecessors, the 14-syllable Alexandrine and the 12-syllable arte mayor verse; but it consists of two phrases and the position of the inner rhythmic accent is usually variable.
lxiii
A well constructed line of this type has a rhythmic accent on the sixth syllable, or a rhythmic accent on the fourth syllable (usually with syllabic stress on the eighth), beside the necessary accent in the tenth position.
Generally the inner accent falls on the sixth syllable approximately twice as often as on the fourth.
Y con diversas flòres va esparcièndo... (León) Y para envejecèrse florecièron... (Calderón) . . . .
Cuna y sepùlcro en un botón hallàron... (Calderón) Se mira al mùndo á nuestros pies tendìdo... (Zorrilla)
Logically, the close of the first phrase should coincide with the end of the word that receives the inner rhythmic accent, and this is usually so, as in:
¿Qué tengo yò, | que mi amistad procùras?... (Lope) Son la verdad y Diòs, | Dios verdadèro... (Quevedo)
But in some lines the rhetorical and the rhythmic accents do not coincide, as in:
... pero huyóse
El pudor á vivìr en las cabànas... (Jovellanos) Del plectro sabiamènte meneàdo... (León) Que á mi puerta, cubièrto de rocìo... (Lope)
The 11-syllable line may be used alone. Cf. the sonnets of Lope de Vega (p. 14) and Calderón (p. 18), the Epístola satírica of Quevedo (p. 15), the blank verse of Jovellanos (p. 38) and Núñez de Arce (p. 144), et al.
The neo-classic poets of the eighteenth century and some of the earlier romanticists even used it in redondillas or assonated:lxiv
En pago de este amor que, mal mi grado, Hasta el crimen me lleva en su delirio, Y á no verse por ti menospreciado Mi virtud elevara hasta el martirio...
¿Por qué de nuevo pálida tristeza Tus rosadas mejillas descolora?
¿Por qué tu rostro en lágrimas se inunda?
¿Por qué suspiras, niña, y te acongojas?
(Bretón de los Herreros, ¿Quién es ella?)
But the poets of the Siglo de Oro and the neo-classic poets generally used it in combination with 7-syllable lines, as in Leon's verses:
¡Qué descansada vida
la del que huye el mundanal rüido, y sigue la escondida
senda por donde han ido
los pocos sabios que en el mundo han sido!
Strophes of three 11-syllable lines and one 5-syllable line (versos sáficos) are not uncommon in highly lyric poems. Usually, in the long lines, the inner accent falls on the fourth syllable, with syllabic stress on the eighth, and with cesura after the fifth syllable. Thus:31
Dulce vecino de la verde selva, Huésped eterno del Abril florido, Vital aliento de la madre Venus, Céfiro blando.
(Villegas, Al céfiro)
Footnote 31: (return)
Mele (op. cit) states that the Sapphic ode was introduced into Spain from Italy by Antonio Agustín, bishop of Tarragona, in the first half of the sixteenth century, and quotes these lines by Agustín:
Júpiter torna, como suele, rico:
Cuerno derrama Jove copiöso, Ya que bien puede el pegaseo monte Verse y la cumbre.
lxv
The romanticists used the versos sáficos with rime. Thus, Zorrilla:
Huye la fuente al manantial ingrata, El verde musgo en derredor lamiendo, Y el agua limpia en su cristal retrata Cuanto va viendo.
(p. 86, li. 3-6)
In the Sapphic strophe of Francisco de la Torre (d. 1594), the short line has seven syllables, and the long line may have inner rhythmic accent on the sixth, or on the fourth syllable. Thus:
El frío Bóreas y el helado Noto Apoderados de la mar insana Anegaron agora en este puerto Una dichosa nave.
(¡Tirsi, Tirsi! vuelve y endereza)
The Sapphic strophe of Francisco de la Torre has been not infrequently imitated. Thus, Bécquer:
Volverán las obscuras golondrinas En tu balcón sus nidos á colgar, Y, otra vez, con el ala á sus cristales Jugando llamarán.
(p. 122, l. 24--p. 123, l. 2)32
Footnote 32: (return) These long lines are especially cantabile, as most are accented on the third and sixth syllables. Only one is accented on the fourth and eighth.
The 7-syllable line is commonly used in combination with those of eleven syllables (see above). In the seventeenth century, particularly, the 7-syllable line was used in anacreontics, lxvi artistic romances, quintillas, etc., in imitation of the Italian settenario, as in Villegas' Cantilena beginning:
Yo vi sobre un tomillo Quejarse un pajarillo, Viendo su nido amado,
De quien era caudillo, De un labrador robado.
In present-day songs the 7-syllable line is rather rare, except in combination with lines of five syllables, as in:
Camino de Valencia, Camino largo...
And:
Á la puerta del cielo Venden zapatos...
In these lines there is no fixed inner rhythmic accent.
The Old Spanish Alexandrine verse-line was composed of two 7-syllable half-lines. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries numerous monkish narrative poems (mester de clereçía) were written in this measure:
En el nonbre del Padre,—que fizo toda cosa, E de don Jhesu Christo,—Fijo dela Gloriosa, Et del Spiritu Sancto,—que egual dellos posa, De un confessor sancto—quiero fer vna prosa...
(Gonzalo de Berceo)
The old Alexandrine fell before the rising popularity of the arte mayor verse early in the fifteenth century. In the eighteenth century a 13-syllable Alexandrine appears in Spanish in imitation of the classic French line.
This later Spanish Alexandrine is not composed of two distinct half-lines. lxvii It also has, like its French prototype, alternate couplets of masculine and feminine lines (versos agudos and versos llanos or graves).
Thus, Iriarte:
En cierta catedral una campana había Que sólo se tocaba algún solemne día Con el más recio son, con pausado compás, Cuatro golpes ó tres solía dar, no más.
There is an inner rhythmic accent on the sixth syllable. Iriarte also revived the older Alexandrine, but without hiatus:
Cuando veo yo algunos,—que de otros escritores Á la sombra se arriman,—y piensan ser autores...
Recent poets have revived the old Alexandrine.33 Thus, Rubén Darío uses it, even retaining the hiatus between the half-lines; but instead of grouping the lines in quatrains with monorime, as the old monks did, he uses assonance in alternate lines, which is, so far as I know, without precedent:
Es con voz de la Biblia—ó verso de Withman Que habría que llegar—hasta ti, ¡cazador!
Primitivo y moderno,—sencillo y complicado, Con un algo de Wáshington—y mucho de Nemrod...
(p. 211, li. 1-4)
Footnote 33: (return) For their use of this line with ternary movement, see p. lxxix.
Lines of five or six syllables usually have a mingled binary and ternary movement:
Una barquera Hallé bizarra, De pocos años Y muchas gracias.
(N. Moratín) lxviii
Salí á las diez Á ver á Clori (No lo acerté):
Horas menguadas Debe de haber...
(L. Moratín)
Lines of 5+5 syllables (versos asclepiadeos) are occasionally written:
Id en las alas—del raudo céfiro, Humildes versos,—de las floridas Vegas que diáfano—fecunda el Arlas, Adonde lento—mi patrio río
Ve los alcázares—de Mantua excelsa.
(L. Moratín)
The Mexican poet Pesado used the same line in his Serenata:
¡Oh tú que duermes—en casto lecho, De sinsabores—ajeno el pecho, Y á los encantos—de la hermosura Unes las gracias—del corazón, Deja el descanso,—doncella pura, Y oye los ecos—de mi canción!
(P. 199, ll. 1-6)
The same measure appears in a patriotic song, Himno de Riego:
En las cabezas—él proclamó La suspirada—constitución, Y enarbolando—marcial pendón, Á los leales—acaudilló...34
Footnote 34: (return)
It should be noted that these latter verses, like most Spanish patriotic songs, are sung with ternary movement, thus:
Èn las cabèzas—èl proclamò...
lxix
This 10-syllable measure is cantabile, and its phrases are too short and too regular to make good recitative verse.
Versos alcaicos differ from the asclepiadeos in that the former have, in a strophe, two lines of 5 + 5, one of nine, and one of ten syllables. Thus, in these lines of Victorio Giner (who probably introduced this strophe into Spain in the second half of the nineteenth century):
Y si los nautas, cantando el piélago, Con remos hieren y espumas alzan, Se aduerme á los ecos sus penas
Y á los ecos su batel avanza.
Juan Luis Estelrich (Poesías, 1900) uses versos alcaicos with the first two lines of each strophe esdrújulo, in imitation of Carducci:
Carmen, tu nombre trae al espíritu Vuelo de aromas, susurro de árboles, Los píos consorcios del cielo, Y el cantar melodioso del Lacio.
(Á Carmen Valera.)35
Footnote 35: (return) Cf. Mele, op. cit.
Romances in lines of 6 + 6 (or 6 + 5) syllables occur in popular Spanish verse, as in the Asturian romance of Don Bueso, beginning:
Camina don Bueso—mañanita fría á tierra de moros—á buscar amiga...
(Men. Pel., Ant. X, 56: cf. also Ant. XI, 102)
This measure was also used in endechas, as in Los comendadores de Córdoba (fifteenth century), beginning:
¡Los comendadores,—por mi mal os vi!
Yo vi á vosotros,—vosotros á mí...
lxx
The 9-syllable line was not well received in Spain, and it has been little used. Iriarte, in his desire to vary the metrical constructions of his fables, used it at least once:
Sobre una mesa, cierto día, Dando estaba conversación Á un Abanico y á un Manguito Un Paraguas ó Quitasol...
There is certainly no fixed inner rhythmic accent in these lines. The fact seems to be that the 9-syllable line is too long to be uttered comfortably in one phrase, or breath-group, and it is too short to be regularly divided into parts by cesura.
B. VERSE WITH TERNARY MOVEMENT
Verse with regular ternary movement may occur in lines of any length, but it is commonly found only in lines of ten, eleven or twelve syllables. Many ternary lines of five and six syllables are found, but they are almost invariably mingled with binary lines. This rondel antiguo (Nebrija, quoted by Men. Pel., Ant. V. 66) is ternary throughout, it would seem:
Despide plazer y pone tristura;
crece en querer vuestra hermosura.
For mixed movements, see the serranilla on p. 45, l. 9 f.
In lines with regular ternary movement, properly speaking, every primary stress receives a rhythmic accent, and lxxi these accents are always separated by two atonic syllables, as in:
Yo no sè como bàilan aquì, Que en mi tièrra no bàilan ansì...
Rarely one finds 6-syllable and 9-syllable lines with regular ternary movement, and these are probably never of popular origin. Thus:
Serèna la lùna Alùmbra en el cièlo, Domìna en el suèlo Profùnda quietùd...
(Espronceda, El reo de muerte, II) Y luègo el estrèpito crèce
Confùso y mezclàdo en un sòn, Que rònco en las bòvedas hòndas Tronàndo furiòso zumbò...
(Espronceda, Estudiante de Salamanca)
Formerly the Spanish 10-syllable line occurred usually in combination with other lines, as in:
En la calle de Atòcha, ¡litòn!
Que vìve mi dàma;
Yo me llàmo Bartòlo, ¡litòn!
Litòque, vitòque, y36 èlla Catànla.
—En la càlle del Sòrdo, ¡litòn!
Que vìve mi mòzo,
Pues á cuànto le pìdo, ¡litòn!
Litòque, vitòque, que sièmpre está sòrdo.