The Authorship of " King Henry VI." 179 



" I that / am cur- / tail'd of / this fair / proper- / tion " Marlowe, 

 writing this last line, would normally have omitted two of the 

 syllables. "I, cur- / tail'd of /this f air / propor- / ti-on " or, " I that/ 

 am cur- / tail'd of / propor / ti-on " would represent the regular 

 Mario vian rhythm. 



Marlowe's avoidance of the eleventh syllable and his fondness for 

 the pyrrhic fifth foot frequently led him to make trisyllables out 

 of awkward final dissyllables such as " England " by the insertion 

 of a colorless parasitic vowel before the liquid consonant. Thus, 

 {Edward II, 1. 581), 



" But can- / not brooke / a night / grown mush- / (e)rump / (mush- 

 room) " 



This tendency is illustrated in the second hne of a couplet which 

 occurs twice in the Contention (p. 7, 1. 145 ; p. 31, 1. 35) : 



" Cold newes for me, for I had hope of France, 



Even as j I have j of fer- / till Eng- / {e)land." 



The rhythm of the italicized verse, quite characteristic of Marlowe, 

 was clearly displeasing to the reviser, for in each of the corresponding 

 lines in 2 Henry VI he has altered the metrical flow according to his 

 own principles of prosody. In the first instance (2 Henry VI, I, i, 239) 

 he has made the last foot a regular iambus by the addition of a color- 

 less monosyllable : 



" Even as / I have / of fer- / tile Eng- / land's soil." 



In the second case (2 Henry VI, III, i, 88), he has an eleven-syllable 

 line : 



" As firm- / ly as / I hope / for fer- / tile Eng- / land." 



Since no alteration of meaning is involved in these changes, and since 

 the revised hnes are not inherentl}' more musical or more correct 

 than the original, it is clear that the alteration illustrates the dis- 

 agreement between the stylistic idiosyncracies of the two poets. 



There are many other instances in which lines with the peculiar 

 Marlovian rhythm in Contention and True Tragedy have been recast 

 in 2 and 3 Henry VI merely in order to avoid the pyrrhic final foot 

 or in order to admit the eleventh-syllable mannerism of the reviser. 

 In the following cases the revised form seems actually inferior to 

 the older version : 



Contention, p. 32, 1. 100: 



" Before / his legs / can beare / his bo- / die vp." 



