Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Leonine

LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:
The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.
Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"

It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.

2008 Update:  Mewling in office.

14 comments:

tsduff said...

Leonine, O cat of mine
On birds and mice
You deign to dine
When really you prefer a can
Of Friskies cat chow
In a pan

Leonine - A kitty who sees a lion in the mirror

Ariel the Thief said...

Leonine, hunts by night, sleeps by day.

Tom & Icy said...

Nice kitty.

Jim said...

Leonine! I'm impressed.

Leonine so called from Leoninus, a canon of the Church of St. Victor, in Paris, the inventor.
http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/brewers/leonine-verses.html

Leonine verses I might try but for here I'm very shy.
..

Doug The Una said...

Terry, a fine poem, well told and fair to cats.

Ariel, how is that different from you vampires?

Icy, you've been misled.

Jim, whether what you claim is true, you seem an expert and none can blame you.

Actonbell, probably not but when I was in High School, I once read a short story by Edgar Allen Poe called "Lionizing" in lieu of whatever the assignment was. It's a satire on notoriety about a man who received short-lived acclaim because every day from childhood he pulled on his nose until it became leonine.

Unknown said...

Leonine, adj. The Pope preceded by Leo VIII, and followed by Leo X.

VOLCANICSOUL PLLC said...

:-) ,,, still stuck between the lines...if thoughts were a dime we all would still be in our prime.(you don't get the dime if you are not in your prime)........................................still adding dots(one thousand is the goal)............................................................................................................peace

Hobbes said...

Fond of lionizing.

Jamie Dawn said...

Invades - Hades???
It doesn't work for me.

Leonine: I can't think of anything for this word.

Cooper said...

invades - Hades works for me in the broad uncultivated variant of the Australian accent.

leonine - I have enough problems with a simple ryhme.

You comments are rather messed up at time...

Just saying.

Anonymous said...

Aubvey thinks that Leo Nine is probably a football player. She's so cute. But she won't give me the time of day!

G said...

In days of yor with thoughts divine, I'd have thought up a definition for leonine.

Internet still got you down?

Doug The Una said...

A4g, howdy, old friend. Was Leo IX the Augsburg guy?

Brer Bear, by his dots you shall know him.

Actonbell, it isn't beautiful but kind of funny and short, which is its own kind of beauty. The last line is hilarious.

Meow, Hobbes. Subursine?

JD, that was kind of Bierce's joke. It only works for NATIVE Arkansawyers.

Thanks, Cooper. You're a trooper.

Fred, she's probably write.

Nope, g, morning.

Hobbes said...

As a good Captist, I can't go that far, Doug.