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Rime and Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. W. Rankin
J. W. Rankin*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri
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Extract

When we say that an act or a statement is without rime or reason, we mean, I suppose, that the thing said or done was utterly without justification or excuse, that there was no reason or occasion for it. Alliteration makes the phrase emphatic. The appropriateness of “reason” in the formula seems obvious enough; but the meaning of “rime,” in this connection is more obscure. The purpose of this brief discussion is to suggest a plausible origin of the formula and to explain the meaning of “rime” in the phrase—in other words, to show that the formula itself is not “without rime or reason.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 1929 , pp. 997 - 1004
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 997 Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, X, 116.

Note 2 in page 997 W. W. Skeat in Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, X, 236.

Note 3 in page 998 Keil, Grammatici Latini, VI, 41 f.

Note 4 in page 998 Cf. Muratori, Antichitá, Italiane IV, 81 f.: Scrive Leone Allacci [1586-1669] nella Dissertazione de Simeon. che l'uso de' versi ritmici, chiamati politici, duravano presso i Greci anche al suo tempo. Jambicis (dic' egli) et Anacreonticis ut plurimum constant; ita tamen ut nulla quantitas syllabarum (quod accuratissime veteres observabant) ratio habeatur; tantum earum numerus, declinationesque accentuum attendantur.

Note 5 in page 998 Ars Palaemonis de Metrica Institutions: Keil, Op. cit., VI, 206.

Note 6 in page 999 Diomedes: Keil, op. cit., I, 474.

Note 7 in page 999 Bede, De Arte Metrica: Keil, op. cit., VII, 267.

Note 8 in page 1000 Claude Fauchet, Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et Poesie Francoise, p. 61; Paris, 1581.

Note 9 in page 1000 Naturally the meaning of rime did not remain fixed: like many other words, the term acquired new connotations somewhat different from those attached to the original rythmus. In the Ormulum (v. 44 f.),

Icc hafe sett her a þiss boc amang Goddspelles wordes All þurrh me sellfenn, manig word þe rime swa to fillenn

the word rime certainly does not mean consonance (modern end-rime), for that does not exist in the painstaking versification. I should say that it comes from rythmus through the Old French, though in this case as in others in the Ormulum, rime meaning number (from A.-S. rim) would make good sense. In the 14th century, when Chaucer complained of the scarcity of rime in English, he meant the scarcity of English words having the same terminal sound; yet he called one of the Canterbury Tales “The Rime of Sir Thopas.” Because European vernacular verse in general came to be fashioned after the model of the Latin rythmus (not metrum), the word rime was often used in the generic sense of poem.

Note 10 in page 1001 For further evidence of the recognition of rythmus and of its relation to metrum cf. Muratori, op. cit., IV, ch. 40.

Note 11 in page 1001 G. Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 267.

Note 12 in page 1001 Op. cit., I, 50.

Note 13 in page 1001 Op. cit., I, 205.

Note 14 in page 1002 The Posies (Cambridge, 1907), p. 466.

Note 15 in page 1002 Ibid., p. 469.

Note 16 in page 1002 Smith, op. cit., II, 360.

Note 17 in page 1002 Ibid., p. 92.

Note 18 in page 1003 Miroir des Domées, in Romania, XV, 300.

Note 19 in page 1003 Fauchet, op. cit., p. 77.

Note 20 in page 1003 Ibid.

Note 21 in page 1004 Marot, ed. Jannet, II, 128.

Note 22 in page 1004 For illustrations of the use of the phrase since the 15th century cf. N. E. D. under Rime; also Larousse, Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siècle, under Rime. Cf. also the Dictionnaire de l'Académie Françoise (Paris, 1814): “On dit proverbialement et figurément d'un raisonnement, d'un discours de travers, d'un ouvrage d'esprit mal fait, d'un ouvrage ou l'on a mal observe les règles de l'art, etc., qu' il n'y a ni rime ni raison. Il n'y a ni rime ni raison a tout ce qu'il dit. Cet Auteur a fait une pièce ou il n'y a ni rime ni raison. Cet Architecte a fait un bâtiment ou il n'y a ni rime ni raison.”

For this last note I am indebted to Professor G. M. Fess of the University of Missouri, and for the two following notes to Professor Richard Jente of Washington University:

“Sans rime ni raison: Se dit d'un ouvrage, ou de la conduite de quelqu'un, lorsqu'on n'y voit que désordre. A l'époque de la décadence de la langue latine, les poètes, non contents d'observer la quantité, autrement de se conformer à des régies pour l'emploi des syllabes longues et brèves, prirent à tâche de faire rimer les vers entre eux, quelquefois même le milieu d'un vers avec la fin: il en résulta de mauvaises rimes et l'altération du sens.” (Dictionnaire des Proverbes Français par M. de la Mésangère, Troisiéme Édition, Paris, 1828, p. 544 f.)

“Ce sont gens plains de deraison, En eulx n'a rime ne raison. (Gace de la Bigne [ca. 1310-1380])”

(Dictionnaire historique de l'ancien language françois etc., par La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, vol. IX, p. 239.)