Giving us pause
Posted by R. Berg on January 04, 2003
In Reply to: Scansion afterthought posted by TheFallen on January 04, 2003
: : : : : : : In Reply to: Scanning posted by R. Berg on December 27, 2002
: : : : : : : :
: : : : : : : : The full Scottish proverb:
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
If turnips were swords, i'd wear one by my side
: : : : : : : : : : : : : :
: : If ifs and ands were pots and pans,
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : there'd
be no need for tinkers' hands"
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : Is it just me? I
can't make this scan:
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : If turnips were swords, i'd
wear one by my side
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : Either there's another way
to read it, or word it ... or the Scots can't scan.
: : : : : : : : : It does scan. There are twelve beats per line. The word "swords" lasts for just one beat not two.
: : : : : : : : The part that gives me trouble is "wear one by my side": its length and pattern of accents. It doesn't divide into DA-da-da like the rest. And the first line has only ten syllables. Are you counting more than one beat for some syllables? "If wi-shes were ho-or-ses, beg-gars would ri-ide"?
: : : : : : : Sorry, I wasn't too clear. The verse is some sort of amphibrachic tetrameter, I think, which is short-long-short four times per line. The uppercase syllables below are stressed:
: : : : : : : "If WISHes were HORSes, BEGgars
would RIDE.
: : : : : : : If TURnips were SWORDS, I'd wear ONE by my SIDE.
:
: : : : : : If IFS and ANDS were POTS and PANS,
: : : : : : : There'd BE no
NEED for TINkers' HANDS."
: : : : : : : When you say the second line, do not pause at all. Ignore the comma. It scans. Really.
: : : : : : I ain't buyiin' it. I don't think there are 12 syllables in any of those lines. (Of course, I kept my shoes on, so counting to 12 is a challenge for me.)
: : : : : Bob, let's lose that counting method anyway. It's confusing. I never know whether to include in the total the finger I'm counting the other fingers with.
: : : : : Mr.
or Ms. Fullstop, it didn't occur to me to stress ONE. I stressed WEAR, as in speech:
:
: : : : If TURnips were SWORDS, I'd WEAR one BY my SIDE
: : : : : and got a
line consisting of two and a fraction dactyls followed by three minus a fraction
trochees. If that's an amphibrachic something, no wonder they went extinct and
turned into petroleum deposits while our ancestors had the size and posture of
rats.
: : : : Rats without internal cumbustion engines. And it served them right.
: : : What wonderful technical terms - and I thought medicine was complex!!
: : I was going to post on this one earlier, but couldn't dredge up all the necessary technical terms from my memory. The anonymous Dot is exactly right with his/her display of where the stresses fall, and nearly right with his/her terminology.
: : The first two lines are strictly speaking each three amphibrachs (ta-TUM-tum) followed by a single iamb (ta-TUM). The last two lines are much easier to spot, each clearly consisting of four simple iambs (ta-TUM).
: : There's potential difficulty in seeing this in both lines one and two. Line one has a mute beat in it as follows:-
: : "if WI-shes / were HOR-ses,/ * BEG-gars / would RIDE"
: : Reading it clearly requires a pause after the comma by the reader, and then it scans perfectly.
: : Contrarily, the second line requires no pause and indeed an elision across two words, thus:-
: : "if TUR-nips / were SWORDS-i'd / wear ONE by / my SIDE"
: : It's the "swordsid" that's presenting the problems.
: Of course, the problem's entirely solved if the first line has over the years lost a word, thus
: "if WI-shes / were HOR-ses, / (then) BEG-gars / would RIDE"
: It's not an essential, but it may help clarify the metric beat and where to pause if you silently add it.
I agree about the pause after "horses." I think there must be a similar pause after "ride." With those two pauses, the first two lines together fit a 3/4 rhythm--except that accenting "one" still seems unnatural to me.
- Giving us pause Bob 01/04/03