Bardisms (3 page)

Put five iambs next to one another, and they look, and sound, like this:

ňń     ňń     ňń     ňń     ňń

dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM

Any verse that conforms to that ten-syllable, fivefold, unstressed-STRESSED pattern is labeled
iambic pentameter
or its non-technical synonym,
blank verse
.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

(friends ROM-ans COUNT-ry-MEN lend ME your EARS)

Now is the winter of our discontent

(now IS the WIN-ter OF our DIS-con-TENT)

There is a tide in the affairs of men

(there IS a TIDE in THE af-FAIRS of MEN)

To be or not to be, that is the question

(to BE or NOT to BE that IS the QUES-[tion])

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

(to-MOR-row AND to-MOR-row AND to-MOR-[row])

All Shakespeare, and all iambic pentameter.

Trained Shakespearean actors bang through the stressed and unstressed syllables in their scripts like so many Tito Puentes drumming away at a very literate set of timbales:

the FAULT dear BRU-tus IS not IN our STARS

ba-BANG ba-BOOM ba-BING ba-BLAM ba-BUMP

but IN our-SELVES that WE are UN-der-LINGS

dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM

This percussive analysis reveals all sorts of fascinating things about the rhythm of Shakespeare’s lines:

It can tell you that a certain word you thought was unimportant actually falls in a position where the scansion gives it stress. “In” in the two lines above is an interesting case. Most of us would ignore that little word, but Cassius deliberately stresses it both times he uses it. Bang out the meter on your tabletop, and you’ll hear that interesting detail.

It can tell you that a certain word is pronounced differently in Shakespeare than we’re used to hearing it. That special pronunciation might require you to emphasize a given syllable in a surprising way, as in this antithesis-crammed line from
Much Ado About Nothing
: “Thou pure impiety and impious purity!”
Impious
, the opposite of pious, which we pronounce
im-PYE-us
, is pronounced
IM-pyus
in this line as it is every time it’s used in Shakespeare, and here
purity
is pronounced with two syllables, not three:
PURE-tee
. Thou PURE im-PYE-uh-TEE and IM-pyus PURE-tee. Without hammering through the scansion, we’d never say the words correctly.

It can point to inflections in prefixes or suffixes to words, like that famous stressed
-ed
at the ends of words that’s such a prominent part of Shakespeare’s characteristic sound. Octavius Caesar opens Act 5 of
Julius Caesar
with this Bardism, Shakespeare on the Occasion of Good News:

Now, Antony, our hopes are answered.

If you pronounce
answered
with two syllables, as a modern English speaker instinctively would, the line will only have nine syllables, not the ten that iambic pentameter demands. Only by stressing the
-ed
ending will the meter be complete, and only then will Shakespeare’s hopes be answerèd.

Throughout this book I will mark inflected
-ed
endings with an accent grave (-
èd
), and I will point out other places where the scansion demands an unusual pronunciation.

I will also point out where it’s best to
disregard
what the scansion suggests when it leads to a reading that’s overly pedantic, technical-sounding, weird, and alienating. Would any English-speaker’s instincts produce this reading?

friends ROM-ans COUNT-ry-MEN lend ME your EARS

Unlikely. Although technically correct, this is instinctively wrong. It sounds bizarre, herky-jerky, shouty. Let the scansion go, and you’ll find that the line will probably come out more like this:

FRIENDS, ROM-ans, COUNT-ry-men, LEND ME your EARS

Spoken according to natural instinct, the line turns out to be iambic pentameter in name only. Its natural rhythm is far more nuanced and interesting. Shakespeare regards iambic pentameter as more of a guide than a prescription; a map, not a destination. He’s like a jazz musician, establishing a baseline rhythm, then improvising around it, syncopating it into something much more loose and free. Actors are trained to understand this, and to recognize that for every line of verse, there’s the scansion that the meter suggests and the scansion that natural instinct suggests; that is, there’s the
metric stress
and the
natural stress
. The best actors know that scansion can provide important, often surprising, information about the words in the lines, but that this information is only useful insofar as it helps clarify what the line is trying to say. Think of scansion and meter as tools that refine your instincts, but don’t replace them.

STEP 6:
Phrasing with the Verse Line: Cover the Speech with a Piece of Paper and Read It One Line at a Time

Take a look at how this Bardism, Shakespeare on the Evil Maniac in a Horror Movie, is arranged:

’Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft! Now to my mother. 5

—H
AMLET
,
Hamlet
, 3.3-358-362

In other words, “It’s now dead midnight, when graves gape open and hell breathes disease into the world. Now I could guzzle hot blood, and do the kind of terrible things that daylight itself would shudder to behold.—Take it easy!—Now I’ll visit my mom.”

Notice what happens at the end of each line in the excerpt. Lines 1 and 3 are marked with commas, and line 5 ends with a period. That punctuation falls where it does because the thoughts expressed in lines 1, 3, and 5 all end at the ends of the lines. That is, there is a change or development in the direction of Hamlet’s thinking between
night
and
when
, and between
blood
and
and
, and the commas denote the end of one phase of that thinking and the beginning of the next. And Hamlet completes a thought about his mom with
mother
, so the period marks that stop. Lines 1, 3, and 5 are therefore called
end-stopped
lines, because the ideas on them stop where the verse line ends.

Lines 2 and 4, however, have no punctuation at all. They don’t need any, because the thoughts they express continue unbroken from the end of one line onto the start of the next. Line 2 is about how
hell itself breathes out contagion
, but that thought is too long to fit on one line of iambic pentameter, so Shakespeare spreads it over two lines, dividing it between
out
and
contagion
. Similarly, line 4 is concerned with business
the day would quake to look on
. Again, this unbroken thought, too long for line 4 to contain, spills onto line 5. Lines 2 and 4 are not end-stopped; the thoughts they express don’t stop at the ends of the lines. Their thoughts run onto the next line, and so we call them
run-on
lines.
*

How should one phrase this language? Lines 1, 3, and 5 take care of themselves. The fact that they’re end-stopped will automatically make any Hamlet break his phrasing at the ends of the lines, precisely where the commas and period indicate a break, breath, or slight suspension of momentum. Lines 2 and 4 are trickier. Should you phrase them according to the punctuation? That would sound like this:

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.

And do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on.

These readings are clear enough, but they transform poetic verse carefully composed in iambic pentameter into a kind of modern prose devoid of any kind of rhythmic signature. Bitter business indeed.

Suppose instead we separate the lines again and think of their ends as
moments of thought
. What if we imagine Hamlet thinking in the moment and choosing words to express his thoughts, asking himself exactly what it is that hell itself breathes into the world, and just what the day would do when it sees the bitter business he’s going to conduct? Watch what happens to the odd endings of lines 2 and 4 if we force Hamlet to ask himself those questions:

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out…
(what?)
…

Contagion to this world.

And do such bitter business as the day…
(what?)
…

Would quake to look on.