THE METRE OF THE PLAY. It should be understood at the outset that metre, or the mechanism of verse, is something altogether distinct from the music of verse. The one is matter of rule, the other of taste and feeling. Music is not an absolute necessity the metrical form is a necessity, being that which consti of verse; tutes the verse. The plays of Shakespeare (with the exception of rhymed passages, and of occasional songs and interludes) are all in unrhymed or blank verse; and the normal form of this blank verse is illustrated by the first line of the present play: "You do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods." This line, it will be seen, consists of ten syllables, with the even syllables (2d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th) accented, the odd syllables (1st, 3d, etc.) being unaccented. Theoretically, it is made up of five feet of two syllables each, with the accent on the second sylla ble. Such a foot is called an iambus (plural, iambuses, or the Latin iambi), and the form of verse is called iambic. This fundamental law of Shakespeare's verse is subject to certain modifications, the most important of which are as follows: — 1. After the tenth syllable an unaccented syllable (or even two such syllables) may be added, forming what is sometimes called a female line; as in i. 1. 2: "No more obey the heavens than our courtiers." The rhythm is complete with the first syllable of courtiers, the second being an extra eleventh syllable. In i. I. 97 ("My residence in Rome at one Philario's ") we have two extra syllables, the rhythm being complete with the second syllable of Philario's. 2. The accent in any part of the verse may be shifted from an even to an odd syllable; as in i. 1. 15: “Glad at the thing they scowl at. And why so?" and 26: "Crush him together rather than unfold." In both lines the accent is shifted from the second to the first syllable. This change occurs very rarely in the tenth syllable, and seldom in the fourth; and it is not allowable in two successive accented syllables. 3. An extra unaccented syllable may occur in any part of the line; as in i. 1. 29, 31, and 35. In 29 the third syllable of Sicilius is superfluous; in 3 the third syllable of Tenantius; and in 35 the word the. 4. Any unaccented syllable, occurring in an even place immediately before or after an even syllable which is properly accented, is reckoned as accented for the purposes of the verse; as, for instance, in lines 30 and 33. In 30 the last syllable of Cassibelan, and in 33 (a female line) the first of Leonatus, are metrically equivalent to accented syllables; and so with the last syllable of gentleman in 34 and of the same word in 39. 5. In many instances in Shakespeare words must be lengthened in order to fill out the rhythm: (a) In a large class of words in which e or i is followed by another vowel, the e or i is made a separate syllable; as ocean, |