John Donne: Holy Sonnet VII; need some help scanning, please

[Alex Sheremet]

hello all,

winter break is almost over, so i thought i'd spend this week on donne's poetry. this morning, i was attempting to scan holy sonnet VII:

At the round earths imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angells, and arise, arise
From death, you numberlesse infinities
Of soules, and to your scattred bodies goe,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despaire, law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never taste deaths woe.
But let them sleepe, Lord, and mee mourne a space,
For, if above all these, my sinnes abound,
w'Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace,
hen wee are there; here on this lowly ground,
Teach mee how to repent; for that's as good
As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon, with thy blood.

-- the last line is of interest.

i scanned each line, no problem, except for the last one; since it is 11 syllables, i figured it might be truncated, but the last foot ends in what is probably a spondee. can that possibly indicate a truncation, or not ?

so, this is what i have.. the bold-face indicates stress, the | indicates a foot:


As if | thou'hadst | seal'd my | pardon, | with thy | blood.

so, that makes an initial pyrrhic (weak-weak), a spondee (strong-strong), two trochees (?!!!), and an iamb. i am OBVIOUSLY not scanning it right.

my questions are:



1) can this line be truncated hexameter ? if so, how can i tell ?

2) is "thou'hadst" pronounced with one syllable, or two ? it is most likely two.

3) can i, instead of assuming each foot is two syllables, consider "thou'hadst seal'd" a three-syllable molossus (strong-strong-strong) ? in this way, i might, thru a stretch, scan the poem with three iambs instead of one.

4) if each foot can only be two syllables, but a line has, say, 11 syllables, does that imply truncation, and if not, what do i do about the last syllable ?

[chasestalling]

riddles are fun, i agree, but wouldn't it serve the best interest of your readers to simply call this a sonnet, a form that originated in rennaisance italy thanks to petrarch?

[Virgil]

1) can this line be truncated hexameter ? if so, how can i tell ?

2) is "thou'hadst" pronounced with one syllable, or two ? it is most likely two.

3) can i, instead of assuming each foot is two syllables, consider "thou'hadst seal'd" a three-syllable molossus (strong-strong-strong) ? in this way, i might, thru a stretch, scan the poem with three iambs instead of one.

4) if each foot can only be two syllables, but a line has, say, 11 syllables, does that imply truncation, and if not, what do i do about the last syllable ?

Answers:
1. I wouldn't call it a truncated hexameter. It's an added syllable to a pentameter. I think there's a name for that, but I can't recall. Try looking it up. Do a google search on verse scanning.

2. I can anly pronouce that as two syllables. Unless there is some funny pronouciation in that time period, I would think that's two syllables. But the extra foot in that line does suggest that one would try to pronouce it as one so that the line becomes pentameter. But still I can't see it as anything but two.

3. Interesting idea. I have never come across a "three-syllable molossus" in any book or essay. I don't know. What would be the advantage? It seems to me that the poem is a sonnet and that requires iambic footing.

4. Not truncation but addition, whatever that term is.
I found this on Donne's poetry:

Notes On Pronunciation: Since this is an international list, and not all listmembers are familiar with the traditional conventions of English poetry, a few explanations may be useful. All of the poems that follow are written in iambic pentameter. That is, a line normally has ten syllables, with five stresses, which normally fall on the even-numbered syllables, although their position may vary (in particular, the stress on the second syllable is often transferred to the first). A sonnet has fourteen lines: an octet of eight lines, followed by a sestet of six. In some of these poems, Donne uses a convention that is a requirement of classical Latin poetry: the elision. If a word ends in a vowel (or diphthong) and the next word begins with one, the first vowel is omitted and the number of syllables in the line reduced by one. As an aid to the reader, I have inserted an "=" sign at each elision. In modern English the "e" in the ending "-ed" of a verb is usually silent. Sometimes in older English it is sounded, creating an extra syllable. When this happens, I have capitalized the "-Ed".

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/5.html
Although I don't think elison applies here.

[Petrarch's Love]

Donne's prosody is notoriously tricky and irregular in places. His contemporary, Ben Jonson, though he considered Donne "first poet in all the world in some things" wrote that Donne "for not keeping of accent deserved hanging."

That said, I think the trouble in this line is probably a fairly straightforward case of elision (see the excellent definition provided by Virgil above). It wouldn't be uncharacteristic of either Donne's poetry or of the time period for "thou'hadst" to be elided into one syllable. An "h" can be considered akin to a vowel for elision purposes, so there would be little problem there, and I think the contractional apostrophe also supports some degree of elision going on. This is, at least, the way I've always read the line. Sometimes poets intentionally include something like this, which can be elided to one syllable in order to fit the meter, but at the same time is near enough to being actually two syllables that it adds a little extra weight or interest to the line. It is possible to have an eleven syllable line in iambic penatmeter, but this is nearly always a line that ends with a feminine, unstressed syllable, which your Donne example clearly does not.

Incidently, I also would put the stress on "if" and leave "thou'hadst" unstressed. (As if thou'hadst seal'd...) The rest of your scansion I think I agree with.

[bluevictim]

Here's how I read it:

As if | thou'hadst seal'd | my par | don, with | thy blood.

I wonder why everyone else read the last foot as a spondee and the penultimate foot as a pyrrhic? I must be missing something.

The synizesis of "thou'hadst" is easier to swallow if you pronounce "hadst" as "adst" (for us Americans: think Monty Python).

[Virgil]

So what you're saying, blue and Petrarch, is "thou'hadst" should be pronounced as "thoudst"? That would maintain the pentameter line.

[Niamh]

I think what Petrarch and blue say is true,Although drop the D; Thoust. it's still in tune with the iambic pentameter of the reast of the sonnet.
But is a Petrarchan Sonnet spilt into an Octet and a sestet, the sestet being more peaceful than the havoc of the Octet. I studied this for my leaving certificate and has remained one of my most favourite Sonnets. And i love how the title is a paradox.

[Petrarch's Love]

So what you're saying, blue and Petrarch, is "thou'hadst" should be pronounced as "thoudst"? That would maintain the pentameter line.

Pretty much (and no reason to drop the "d" I don't think ) Actually, I think it probably sounded something like thouadst, since I imagine the "a" sound from the "hadst" still lingers a little. The best way I can think of to explain what I mean is the way Italians pronounce the name Giovanni. Americans tend to make the "i" and the "o" seperate syllables so that it sounds like gee-oh-vani, but when Italians say it there's one less syllable so it sounds like "joe-vani" If you listen closely though, the Italian pronunciation still has some of the "i" sound in it, but it's very slight and said almost at the same time as the "o." Similarly in "thou'hadst," the "ow" sound of the thou would be dominant like the "o" in Giovanni, but the "a" of "hadst" would still be present, like the "i" in Giovanni. Does that make sense? If not, ignore my fine tuning. "Thoudst" is close enough. Sometimes there are distinct disadvantages to written communication.