Leonine verse is a type of versification based on an internal rhyme between a word within the line before a

caesura 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for "cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase beg ...

and a word at the end, and commonly used in 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 A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. It is possible that this Leonius is the same person as Leoninus, a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

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 and classical purists, who considered it absurd, coarse, and a corruption of and offensive to the high ideals of classical literature.

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

used it in a drunken song sung by Caliban in ''

The Tempest ''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...

''.

Examples

Latin

Pre-medieval

Leonine verses from

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

's ''

Eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; , ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by o ...

'' 8.80 (39 B.C.): :''Limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit'' Leonine verses from

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

's ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'' (A.D. 8): :''Quem mare carpentem, substrictaque crura gerentem'' :: ..:''Quot caelum stellas, tot habet tua Roma puellas'' :: ..:''Quaerebant flavos per nemus omne favos''

Medieval and post-medieval

Leonine verses from the tomb of the

Venerable Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most fa ...

in the Gallee Chapel of

Durham Cathedral Durham Cathedral, formally the , is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Durham, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Durham and is the Mother Church#Cathedral, mother church of the diocese of Durham. It also contains the ...

, possibly from the 8th century: :''HAC SUNT IN FOSSA BÆDÆ VENERABILIS OSSA'' Leonine verses in the

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

on top of the marble ''ciborio'' in the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Portico in Campitelli: :''Hic est illa piae Genitricis Imago Mariae
Quae discumbenti Gallae patuit metuenti'' Leonine verses by Marbodius of Rennes, ''De Lapidibus'', around 1040: :Lingua nequit fari mens nulla valet meditari
Quantus mente furor mihi est, quibus ignibus uror Leonine verses in

half rhyme Perfect rhyme (also called full rhyme, exact rhyme, or true rhyme) is a form of rhyme between two words or phrases, satisfying the following conditions: * The stressed vowel sound in both words must be identical, as well as any subsequent sounds. ...

in the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in

Torcello Torcello (; ) is a sparsely populated island at the northern end of the Venetian Lagoon, in north-eastern Italy. It was first settled in 452 AD and has been referred to as the parent island from which Venice was populated. It was a town with ...

, around 1100: :''Formula virtutis Maris astrum, Porta salutis
Prole Maria levat quos conjuge subdidit Eva
Sum deus atq ecaro patris et sum matris imago
non piger ad lapsum set flentis p oimus adsum'' Leonine verses in

in the apse of the Cathedral of Cefalù, around 1150: :''Factus homo Factor hominis factique Redemptor
Iudico corporeus corpora corda Deus'' Leonine verses in the Portale dell'abbazia di Leno dell'abate Gunterio, in the year 1200: :''HAEC NON LENENSIS TELLUS FERTUR LEONENSIS
CUI NON LENONES NOMEN POSUERE LEONES
FORMA LEONINA SIGNANS BIS MARMORA BINA
DICITUR OFFERRE LOCA VOCE NON AUTEM RE
FELIX EST NOMEN FELIX EST NOMINIS OMEN
QUOD NON LENONES POSUERUNT IMMO LEONES'' Another very famous poem in a tripart Leonine rhyme is the ''De Contemptu Mundi'' of Bernard of Cluny, whose first book begins: :''Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus:
Ecce minaciter, imminet arbiter, ille supremus.
Imminet imminet, ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,
Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, 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 Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter used in Ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry as well as in epic, didactic, satirical, and pastoral Latin poetry. Its name is derived from Greek (, "finger") and (, "six"). Dactylic hexameter consists o ...

rhyming

couplet In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there ...

s divided into three) shows, the internal rhymes of leonine verse may be based on tripartition of the line (as opposed to a

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 set the ''Hora novissima'' to music in his cantata of the same name. The epitaph of Count Alan Rufus, dated by Richard Sharpe and others to 1093, is described by André Wilmart as being in Leonine hexameter: :''Stella nuit regni: comitis caro marcet Alani:'' :''Anglia turbatur: satraparum flos cineratur:'' :''Iam Brito flos regum, modo marcor in ordine rerum'' :''Praecepto legum, nitet ortus sanguine regum.'' :''Dux viguit summus, rutilans a rege secundus.'' :''Hunc cernens plora: 'requies sibi sit, Deus' ora.'' :''Vixit nobilium: praefulgens stirpe Brittonum.''Epitaph of 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

English

Leonine rhyme is common in English-language verse. A Leonine rhyme in Shakespeare's ''

'' 2:2 (1611), sung in a drunken song by Caliban: :''No more dams I'll make for fish,'' ::''Nor fetch in firing, at requiring,'' :''Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish,'' ::'''Ban, 'ban, Ca-caliban has a new master. Get a new man.'' Leonine verses used by

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limerick (poetry), limericks, a form he popularised. ...

in his humorous poem " 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 away, 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

* {{Wiktionary Genres of poetry Medieval Latin poetry Rhyme Types of verses