and to 'Tautologia or the Figure of selfe saying,' which are thus described by Puttenham: Ye do by another figure notably affect th’eare when ye make every word of the verse to begin with a like letter, as for example in this verse written in an Epitaphe of our making: Time tried his truth his travailes and his trust, It is a figure much used by our common rimers, and doth well if it be not too much used, for then it falleth into the vice which shall be hereafter spoken of called Tautologia.-The Arte of English Poesie, Lib. iii. Chap. 16. Ye have another manner of composing your metre nothing commendable, specially if it be too much used, and is when our maker takes too much delight to fill his verse with wordes beginning all with a letter, as an English rimer that said: The deadly droppes of darke disdaine, Do daily drench my due desartes. And as the Monke we spake of before, wrote a whole Poeme to the honor of Carolus Calauis, every word in his verse beginning with C, thus: Carmina clarisonæ Caluis cantate camenæ. Many of our English makers use it too much, yet we confesse it doth not ill, but pretily becomes the meetre, if ye passe not two or three words in one verse, and use it not very much, as he that said by way of Epithete, The smoakie sighes: the trickling teares. THE FIGURE OF SELFE SAYING. 17 And such like, for such composition makes the meetre runne away smoother, and passeth from the lippes with more facilitie by iteration of a letter than by alteration, which alteration of a letter requires an exchange of ministery and office in the lippes, teeth on palate, and so doth not the iteration.—The Arte of English Poesie, Lib. iii. Chap. 22. Holofernes says, 'I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility,' and he then fills his verse with words all beginning with the letter P (which happens to be the initial letter of the name Puttenham), and Puttenham, in describing this figure, says it is where our maker takes too much delight to fill his verse 'with wordes beginning all with a letter,'—and afterwards, that 'such composition makes the meetre runne away smoother, and passeth from the lippes with more facilitie." Hol. Satis quod sufficit. Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. Sc. 1. Hamlet. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affection; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. Act ii. Sc. 2. O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd, Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affection, Have blown me full of maggot ostentation. Ye have another intollerable ill maner of speech, which by the Greekes originall (cacozelia) we may call fonde affectation, and is when we affect new words and phrases other than the good speakers and writers in any language, or than custome hath allowed, and is the common fault of young schollers not halfe well studied before they come from the Universitie or schooles, and when they come to their friends or happen to get some benefice or other promotion in their countreys, will seeme to coigne fine wordes out of the Latin, and to use new-fangled speaches, thereby to shew themselves among the ignorant the better learned.-The Arte of English Poesie, Lib. iii. Chap. 22. In the index to the 'Arte of English Poesie' this word is spelt 'affection.' THE ECHO SOUND. 19 Evans. The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this? He hears with ears? why it is affectations. Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. Sc. 1. Evans seems to confound 'too full speech' with 'fond affectation.' (See Part I. p. 31.) Shakespeare sometimes makes one word both begin and end his verse, as in this passage, Be as thou wast wont to be; See as thou was wont to see: Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv. Sc. 1; a sort of repetition which Puttenham calls Epanalepsis, or the Echo sound, and thus describes, Ye have another sort of repetition, when ye make one worde both beginne and end your verse, which therefore I call the slow retourne, otherwise the Echo sound, as thus: Much must he be loued, that loveth much, Feare many must he needs, whom many feare. Unless I call him the echo sound, I could not tell what name to give him, unlesse it were the slow returne. The Arte of English Poesie, Lib. iii. Chap. 19. Prin. But what, but what, come they to visit us? This. Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove? O Pyramus, arise! Speak, speak. Quite dumb? Must cover thy sweet eyes. These lily lips, This cherry nose, These yellow cowslip cheeks, Are gone, are gone: Lovers, make moan. Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1. Clo. SONG. Come away, come away, death, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, My part of death, no one so true Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown: A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O, where Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there! Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 4. In these passages Shakespeare probably uses the underlay or Coocko-spel, thus described by Puttenham: |