# Leonine verse > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Leonine_verse > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Leonine_verse.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonine_verse > Source revision: 1248681291 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) **Leonine verse** is a type of [versification](/source/Metre_(poetry)) based on an [internal rhyme](/source/Internal_rhyme) between a word within the line before a [caesura](/source/Caesura) and a word at the end, and commonly used in [Latin verse](/source/Latin_verse) of the European Middle Ages. The proliferation of such conscious rhymes, uncommon in Classical Latin poetry, is traditionally attributed to a probably apocryphal monk **Leonius**, who is supposed to be the author of a history of the Old Testament (*Historia Sacra*) preserved in the [Bibliothèque Nationale](/source/Biblioth%C3%A8que_nationale_de_France) of [Paris](/source/Paris). It is possible that this Leonius is the same person as [Leoninus](/source/L%C3%A9onin), a [Benedictine](/source/Benedictine) musician of the twelfth century, in which case he would not have been the original proliferator of the form. In English Leonine verse is sometimes referred to disparagingly as "**jangling verse**", for example by 19th-century [antiquaries](/source/Antiquaries) and classical purists, who considered it absurd, coarse, and a corruption of and offensive to the high ideals of classical literature. [William Shakespeare](/source/William_Shakespeare) used it in a drunken song sung by [Caliban](/source/Caliban) in *[The Tempest](/source/The_Tempest)*. ## Examples ### Latin #### Pre-medieval Leonine verses from [Virgil](/source/Virgil)'s *[Eclogues](/source/Eclogues)* [8](/source/Eclogue_8).80 (39 B.C.):[1] - *Limus ut hic du**rescit**, et haec ut cera li**quescit*** Leonine verses from [Ovid](/source/Ovid)'s *[Metamorphoses](/source/Metamorphoses)* (A.D. 8):[2] - *Quem mare car**pentem**, substrictaque crura ge**rentem*** - [...] - *Quot caelum **stellas**, tot habet tua Roma pu**ellas*** - [...] - *Quaerebant **flavos** per nemus omne **favos*** #### Medieval and post-medieval Leonine verses from the tomb of the [Venerable Bede](/source/Venerable_Bede) in the Gallee Chapel of [Durham Cathedral](/source/Durham_Cathedral), possibly from the 8th century: - *HAC SUNT IN **FOSSA** BÆDÆ VENERABILIS **OSSA*** Leonine verses in the [mosaic](/source/Mosaic) on top of the marble *ciborio* in the [Chiesa di Santa Maria in Portico in Campitelli](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiesa_di_Santa_Maria_in_Portico_in_Campitelli): - *Hic est illa **piae** Genitricis Imago Ma**riae** Quae discum**benti** Gallae patuit metu**enti***[3] Leonine verses by [Marbodius of Rennes](/source/Marbodius_of_Rennes), *De Lapidibus*, around 1040: - Lingua nequit **fari** mens nulla valet medi**tari** Quantus mente **furor** mihi est, quibus ignibus **uror**[4] Leonine verses in [half rhyme](/source/Perfect_and_imperfect_rhymes) in the [Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_Santa_Maria_Assunta_(Torcello)) in [Torcello](/source/Torcello), around 1100: - *Formula vir**tutis** Maris astrum, Porta sa**lutis** Prole Maria **levat** quos conjuge subdidit **Eva** Sum deus atq[ue] **caro** patris et sum matris i**mago** non piger ad **lapsum** set flentis p[ro]ximus **adsum*** [5] Leonine verses in [mosaic](/source/Mosaic) in the apse of the [Cathedral of Cefalù](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattedrale_di_Cefal%C3%B9), around 1150: - *Factus homo Fac**tor** hominis factique Redemp**tor** Iudico corpo**reus** corpora corda **Deus***[6] Leonine verses in the [Portale dell'abbazia di Leno](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portale_dell'abbazia_di_Leno) dell'abate Gunterio, in the year 1200: - *HAEC NON LE**NENSIS** TELLUS FERTUR LEO**NENSIS** CUI NON LE**NONES** NOMEN POSUERE LE**ONES** FORMA LEO**NINA** SIGNANS BIS MARMORA **BINA** DICITUR OFFER**RE** LOCA VOCE NON AUTEM **RE** FELIX EST **NOMEN** FELIX EST NOMINIS **OMEN** QUOD NON LE**NONES** POSUERUNT IMMO LE**ONES***[7] Another very famous poem in a tripart Leonine rhyme is the *De Contemptu Mundi* of [Bernard of Cluny](/source/Bernard_of_Cluny), whose first book begins: - *Hora novis**sima**, tempora pes**sima** sunt, vigilemus: Ecce minac**iter**, imminet arb**iter**, ille supremus. Imminet im**minet**, ut mala ter**minet**, æqua coronet, Recta remun**eret**, anxia lib**eret**, æthera donet.* - (These current days are the worst of times: let us keep watch. Behold the menacing arrival of the Supreme Judge. He is coming, He is coming to end evil, crown the just, reward the right, set the worried free and grant eternal life.) As this example of *tripartiti dactylici caudati* ([dactylic hexameter](/source/Dactylic_hexameter) rhyming [couplets](/source/Couplet) divided into three) shows, the internal rhymes of leonine verse may be based on tripartition of the line (as opposed to a [caesura](/source/Caesura) in the center of the verse) and do not necessarily involve the end of the line at all. In 1893, the American composer [Horatio Parker](/source/Horatio_Parker) set the *Hora novissima* to music in his cantata of the same name. The epitaph of Count [Alan Rufus](/source/Alan_Rufus), dated by [Richard Sharpe](/source/Richard_Sharpe_(historian)) and others to 1093, is described by [André Wilmart](/source/Andr%C3%A9_Wilmart) as being in Leonine hexameter: - *Stella nuit reg**ni**: comitis caro marcet Ala**ni**:* - *Anglia tur**batur**: satraparum flos cine**ratur**:* - *Iam Brito flos **regum**, modo marcor in ordine **rerum*** - *Praecepto **legum**, nitet ortus sanguine **regum**.* - *Dux viguit **summus**, rutilans a rege se**cundus**.* - *Hunc cernens **plora**: 'requies sibi sit, Deus' **ora**.* - *Vixit nobili**um**: praefulgens stirpe Britton**um**.*[8] ### English Leonine rhyme is common in English-language verse. A Leonine rhyme in Shakespeare's *[The Tempest](/source/The_Tempest)* 2:2 (1611), sung in a drunken song by [Caliban](/source/Caliban):[9] - *No more dams I'll make for fish,* - *Nor fetch in **firing**, at **requiring**,* - *Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish,* - *'Ban, 'ban, Ca-cali**ban** has a new master. Get a new **man**.* Leonine verses used by [Edward Lear](/source/Edward_Lear) in his humorous poem "[The Owl and the Pussy-Cat](/source/The_Owl_and_the_Pussy-Cat)" (1870): - *Pussy said to the **Owl**, "You elegant **fowl**!* - *How charmingly sweet you sing!* - *O let us be **married**! too long we have **tarried**:* - *But what shall we do for a ring?"* - *They sailed a**way**, for a year and a **day**,* - *to the land where the Bong-Tree grows,* - *and there in a **wood** a Piggy-wig **stood*** - *with a ring at the end of his nose.* ## References 1. Trench, Richard Chenevix (1864). [*Sacred Latin Poetry*](https://books.google.com/books?id=An3fzvYFhesC&pg=PA28). London: Macmillan and Co. p. 28. Retrieved September 24, 2024. 1. Peck, Harry Thurston (1896). ["Rhyme"](https://books.google.com/books?id=f1UdyYQoWZcC&pg=PA1377). *Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities*. Vol. 2. New York: American Book Company. p. 1,377. Retrieved September 24, 2024. 1. [Pietro Zani](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Zani), *Enciclopedia metodica critico-ragionata delle belle arti: dell' abate D. [Piero Zani](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Zani), Fidentino*. Parma: Tipografia ducale, 1817, pt. 1, vol. 8, p. 161 ([on-line](https://books.google.com/books?id=ii4TAAAAQAAJ&dq=versi+leonini&pg=PA161)) 1. *Poesia latina medievale*, introduzione, testi, traduzione, note, trascrizioni musicali a cura di Giuseppe Vecchi. Parma 1959, p. 522 1. Renato Polacco, *La cattedrale di Torcello*, Venezia 1984, p. 52 1. Demus O., *The Mosaics of Norman Sicily,* London, 1945, pp. 4-5 1. Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, *Dell'antichissima badia di Leno*, Venezia 1767, p. 35 1. Epitaph of [Alan Rufus](/source/Alan_Rufus) as recorded in Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 297, published in Thomas Arnold, 1890, *Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey,* London: Printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, [p. 350](https://books.google.com/books?id=uzQ7AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA350). 1. Hornback, Robert (2018). [*Racism and Early Blackface Comic Traditions: From the Old World to the New*](https://books.google.com/books?id=dMRlDwAAQBAJ&dq=jangling+verse&pg=PA195). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 195. ISBN 978-3-319-78047-4. Retrieved August 9, 2019. --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Leonine verse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonine_verse) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonine_verse?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.