Rhyme Royal - Some Examples

Some Examples

The three examples below are each from a different century. The first, composed in the 14th century, is from Chaucer and if, as some scholars believe, it is one of his earliest poems, then it is possibly the first manifestation of the form in English. The second example is from 15th century Scotland where the stanza was very widely taken up and developed. The last, from Thomas Wyatt, is a 16th century illustration of the form (modernised).

• Opening stanza of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde:

The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen,

That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,

In lovinge, how his aventures fellen

Fro wo to wele, and after out of Ioye,

My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye,

Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte

Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryt

• Example from Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, in a stanza which describes the god Saturn hailing from an extremely cold realm:

His face fronsit, his lyre was lyke the leid,

His teith chatterit and cheverit with the chin,

His ene drowpit, how sonkin in his heid,

Out of his nois the meldrop fast can rin,

With lippis bla and cheikis leine and thin;

The ice-schoklis that fra his hair doun hang

Was wonder greit and as ane speir als lang.

• Opening to Thomas Wyatt's rhyme royal poem:

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.