sillables

Yeat ware not their Letters facioned to ioyne together in sillables like ours, but Ziphres, and shapes of men and of beastes, of heades, and of armes, and artificers tooles, which signified in sondrie wise echone accordyng to his propertie.

The Fardle of Facions, conteining the aunciente maners, customes and lawes, of the peoples enhabiting the two partes of the earth, called Affricke and Asie 2004

To returne from rime to our measure againe, it hath bene sayd that according to the number of the sillables contained in euery verse, the same is sayd a long or short meeter, and his shortest proportion is of foure sillables, and his longest of twelue, they that vse it aboue, passe the bounds of good proportion.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

This meeter of twelue sillables the French man calleth a verse

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

Therefore in a verse of twelue sillables the _Cesure_ ought to fall right vpon the sixt sillable: in a verse of eleuen vpon the sixt also leauing fiue to follow.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

By this figure is signified stay, support, rest, state and magnificence, your dittie then being reduced into the forme of a Piller, his base will require to beare the breath of a meetre of six or seuen or eight sillables: the shaft of foure: the chapter egall with the base, of this proportion I will giue you one or two examples which may suffise.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

But because in very truth I thinke them but vaine & superstitious obseruations nothing at all furthering the pleasant melody of our English meeter, I leaue to speake any more of them and rather wish the continuance of our old maner of Poesie, scanning our verse by sillables rather than by feete, and vsing most commonly the word

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

Where ye see euery verse is all of a measure, and yet vnegall in number of sillables: for the second verse is but of sixe sillables, where the rest are of eight.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

_Soueraine God_, or two bissillables and that is plesant thus, _Restore againe_, or with foure monosillables, and that is best of all thus, _When I doe thinke_, I finde no fauour in a meetre of three sillables nor in effect in any odde, but they may be vsed for varietie sake, and specially being enterlaced with others the meetre of six sillables is very sweete and dilicate as thus.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

The next measure is of two feete or of foure sillables, and then one word

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

The meeter of ten sillables is very stately and Heroicall, and must haue his _Cesure_ fall vpon the fourth sillable, and leaue sixe behind him thus.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham