With short lines of verse, Shakespeare invented the sound of silence.
In Shakespeare’s verse, he used many techniques to convey characterization, giving actors the keys to unlock compelling versions of the characters he wrote into his plays. With scansion, and the many secrets it holds, performers have been given all the tools they need to craft complex portrayals of some of the most beloved characters in the English language.
In this series on Iambic Pentameter, we’ve covered many of these secrets. As we mine the scansion, we put a strong emphasis on the rhythm of the verse. But nowhere is that rhythm more evident than in the instance of irregular verse we’re covering in this post:
Short lines.
Short lines of verse are basically self-explanatory. They are found where Shakespeare has written a line of verse that would normally have 10 syllables, but the line falls short, giving us anywhere from 8 to sometimes only 4, and even fewer syllables to work with in the line. For instance, instead of
deDUM deDUM deDUM deDUM deDUM
we might get
deDUM deDUM _____ _____ _____
Are we all on the same page? I’ll give you an example:
In one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, All’s Well That Ends Well, there’s an interesting example of a short line. (But if you follow along in your own complete works, you may notice something interesting which I’ll address in another post. I know, I know. The suspense is killing me, too. Anyway, back to the matter at hand: short lines.)
The character of Helena has a beautiful monologue, confessing her love for the Countess’ son, Bertram. Here, we have a fantastic example of a short line:
Then I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor but honest, so’s my love...
And what do we have here? Say the lines aloud, and listen to the obvious rhythm in the verse. Yes, some of it is irregular in that we have a feminine ending in “next unto high heaven,” but what comes immediately after that?
Four syllables. Two poetic feet. One incredibly powerful statement.
I love your son.
And then, nothing. The rest of that line of verse is left empty. It’s what some call a short line of verse, and there’s a lot to unpack here. Did Shakespeare just not have anything left to say? Did he run out of ideas? What’s going on here?
Let me submit to you a couple of concepts here. First, let’s look at the context. Helena is talking to the Countess, who is of much higher rank, and holds all the cards in this scene. She’s been fighting to hide her true feelings for the Countess’ son, but the Countess is pressing her to confess her feelings. Helena knows she’s low-born, and not a worthy match for Bertram. It would be very bold indeed to expect anyone to approve. It’s got to be a pretty nerve-wracking moment for her.
How do we know this? Well, for one, the line before has a feminine ending, and as we’ve already discussed in a previous post, that’s a good indicator that she’s got a lot welling up inside her. So much, in fact, that she’s having a hard time making her words fit the comfortable, acceptable rhythm of iambic pentameter.
Alright. So, she’s nervous. But why? Probably because she’s about to say out loud something she feels so deeply that the words might just stick in her throat. And that’s exactly what they do.
I love your son.
And the words just hang there in silence. That was a huge declaration, and as soon as it leaves Helena’s lips, we all need a moment to process it. I think Shakespeare is telling us something about how the actress should play this moment. Helena could be terrified of what she’s just said. She could be struggling to keep her composure. She could be hoping for a response that never comes. Shakespeare’s telling us that Helena doesn’t just rush on to the next line. There’s a pause, and the actress has to fill that pause with action. It could be physical or emotional, but that gap needs to be played. Otherwise, Shakespeare would’ve filled it for you.
Now, the second piece of this puzzle is a little complicated. “How long is the pause in the verse supposed to be?” Remember that rhythm we’re always talking about? Well, this is where it can really come to the forefront.
We know we’re speaking in iambic pentameter in this speech. We also know that the actress playing Helena has some freedom in her interpretation of the character, especially given the emotional gravity indicated by the context and the irregular verse. So, imagine you’re playing this role. Speak the words aloud, and try to hear the heartbeat rhythm of iambic pentameter in your mind as you say them.
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son. (deDUM deDUM deDUM)
Those deDUMs are obviously echoing silently in your mind, but they continue the rhythm set by the delivery of those first two poetic feet in the line. If the first four words are played rather quickly, then the rhythm of the unspoken verse could easily follow that pace. However, if you decided to put a ton of weight into them, and they came out slowly, you could understandably maintain that rhythm through the rest of the line, giving even more weight to the silence.
The choice is really up to you, and it might manifest differently depending on the emotional tone of the moment. In a full production, it might even change from night to night, based on how that scene is played each performance. The point here is that the rhythm will be felt in those empty beats. And that’s by design. In these short lines, Shakespeare has given you another clue as to how the character feels, what she’s thinking, and how it changes the way she speaks in this scene.
There’s no hard and fast rule as to how you must play the short line, but I think skipping over it would be a shame. It’s an opportunity for you to unearth a beautiful emotional beat for the character which Shakespeare dropped in just for you. That’s one of the great joys of stumbling across a short line of verse. Explore the sound of that silence and see what Shakespeare tells you.
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