Shakespeare's Scansion


Here are lines from "Richard III":



Farewell. The leisure and the fearful time


Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love


And ample interchange of sweet discourse


Which so long sundered friends should dwell upon.



Not just these lines, but the entire monologue scans perfectly. Except for the line that contains the word "ceremonious." Which, according to today's dictionaries, has five syllables. For the line to scan properly, it should be four.


This is, perhaps, the opposite of the "ambitious" thing (the word oft-repeated in Antony's monologue in "Julius Caesar": "But Brutus says he was ambitious." For the line properly to scan, it requires one more syllable. The one hypothesis I ran across somewhere stated that back in Shakespeare's time, the word ambitious was pronounced "am-bi-shey-es," providing that necessary extra syllable).


Has "ceremonious" undergone the ... uh ... reverse transformation? Was it pronounced "ce-re-mon-yes" or something like that back in Shakespeare's day?



Answer



There are many English words where elision of syllables is perfectly common, and therefore acceptable in stage speech.


In this case, the actor will say seh-reh-mone-yus and the audience will understand him perfectly.


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