‘Flower/Tower/Power’ are words whose pronunciation as one or two syllables or something in between varies extremely across the UK today – monosyllabic in Ulster and two syllables so separate they are almost separate words in Wales. I don’t know what the variations in pronunciation in early modern times would have been, but I’m sure they’re reflected in at least some spelling and rhyme/meter choices.
Best wishes,
Helen
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Scott Lucas
Sent: 23 May 2020 20:57
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Subject: Re: print vs. pronunciation
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Thanks for this thought about "naked," Elisabeth. I have to say I had not noticed the monosyllabic pronunciation "nak'd" before in reading early modern verse, but then again, I was not looking for it! Your thought about "naked" as a participle made into an adjective is a good one!
As for flower/tower/power, these words are spelled in the modern way in the 1559 and 1563 Mirror for Magistrates editions, but they are always monosyllabic. Thomas Sackville does spell the past tense of the verb "to flower" as "flowred," though (or at least the person who prepared his "Induction" for the press did). This, too, is one syllable.
Thanks,
Scott
On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 3:55 PM Elisabeth Chaghafi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Isn't bisyllabic 'naked' essentially just a participle used as an adjective, like 'learned' (which could also be pronounced as one or two syllables, depending on the context)? The OED doesn't only list 'nake' as a medieval variant of the adjective, but also as a verb.
Regarding 'flower'/'tower'/'power' etc, does the Mirror really use those exact spellings, Scott? I always thought that the spelling 'flower' typically signals two syllables (sort of like -ed vs -'d), whereas 'flowre' is more ambiguous, but on the whole more likely to be one syllable. I may be wrong about that, though...
And for what it's worth, I think I vaguely remember learning as an undergraduate the -eth as the verb ending for the third person singular was probably already being supplanted by -s in spoken English during the 16th century, but preserved in writing for longer (partly because it was so convenient for poetry to have two version with a differing syllable count). I honestly can't remember where I read it, but I imagine it must have been some historical linguist, because it's the sort of argument you'd expect to find in a book published during the first half of the 20th century. Although it may have been long disproved, of course.
On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 8:07 PM Scott Lucas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear all,
I've enjoyed reading this discussion, and I’m sorry that I have come to it a bit late I had occasion to ask questions similar to those of Hannibal when I was editing the 1559 and 1563 editions of A Mirror for Magistrates. In case anyone is interested, I’ll note here some instances of unexpected pronunciation (unexpected at least by me) that I came across in the Mirror, as well as the questions they raised for me:
· Words such as tower, flower, and power in the Mirror are almost always monosyllabic. Does this pronunciation reflect their borrowing in the middle-English period from Anglo-French?
· “Naked” could be one or two syllables. It was pronounced “nak’d” in the latter form, it seems, though one poet (John Dolman) rhymes “take” with “naked.” There was in middle English an adjective “nake,” meaning “naked.” The OED records its use up to 1450. Did Dolman, who hailed from Berkshire, still say in the 1560s “nake,” even if he spelled the word “naked”?
· “Even,” when it is an adjective meaning “equal to” or “level with.” is invariably two syllables. “Even” when it is an adverb, as in “even so” or “even if” or “even he,” is (with only one exception in the Mirror) monosyllabic. Compare
"But those I razèd even with the grounde”
with
“So, even amyds my vyce, my vertue shoane”
Did the adjectival and adverbial forms of the similarly spelled “even” have the status of homophones in the mid-sixteenth century, making “e’en” just a written poetic elision for metrical effect, or were they in fact pronounced differently from one another, despite the convention of spelling them in the same way? (Or was it only the Mirror authors who did not contract the adjective "even" into "e'en"?)
· The phrase “many a” is always disyllabic in the Mirror. It was evidently pronounced “Man-ya,” as in “There many a man was slayne and striken downe.”
· The one pronunciation conundrum that gave me the most pause was the fact that in any given word, the “-eth” suffix could be pronounced as a syllable of its own, or it could be merged with the previous syllable, or it could be silent. For example, a verb such as “[he] liveth” could be pronounced “live-eth” or “livth” or perhaps even “live.” Thomas Sackville, for one, spells “leapeth” as “lepth,” and he rhymes it with “depth.” As for the last of the “-eth” pronunciation options, these are actual rhymes in A Mirror for Magistrates (both from Dolman's poem "Lord Hastings"):
“Yf frendly curtesye do the word resolve,
To the Speakers comfort sweetly hit dissolueth.”
And
“But yf fayre phebus with his countenaunce sweete
Resolue it, down the dewe, or Manna fleeteth.”
I still don’t fully understand the logic in this last one!
Scott
Professor and Head of the Department
Department of English, Fine Arts, and Communications
The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina
Charleston, SC 29409
(843) 953-5133
On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 4:11 PM Hannibal Hamlin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear Sidneieans, Spenserians, and fellow travellers,
I thought I'd pose to you a question that has occurred to me many times over the years. Has anyone studied the ways in which words are obviously intended to be pronounced differently from their printed forms in early modern texts? I don't mean by this the Crystals and their "original" pronunciation claims, but rather cases where, for instance, meter obviously requires contraction or elision, even thought the printing doesn't indicate this. For one particularly prominent example, "evil" very often appears in contexts where it must be a monosyllable, but how was it actually pronounced? Omitting the "i" ("ev'l") is no help, since the result is practically unpronounceable. My hunch has always been that it was pronounced "ill," but I've never seen anyone comment on this. A similar case is the monosyllable for "spirit," which could be either "sprite," "sprit," or "spreet" (I've always favored the first).
Assuming anyone else finds this interesting, I'd welcome thoughts or references.
Wishing you health.
Hannibal
--
Hannibal Hamlin
Professor of English
The Ohio State UniversityAuthor of The Bible in Shakespeare, now available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199677610.do
164 Annie & John Glenn Ave., 421 Denney Hall
Columbus, OH 43210-1340
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