Rhyme and language._]

In the rhymes, as in those of all early rhymed poems, there is a
certain monotony. Just as in the probably contemporary Layamon the
poet is tempted into rhyme chiefly by such easy opportunities as
"other" and "brother," "king" and "thing," so here, though rhyme is
the rule, and not, as there, the exception, certain pairs, especially
"wip" and "lip" ("wife" and "body"), "sach" and "sprach," "geben" and
"geleben," "tot" and "not," recur perhaps a little too often for the
ear's perfect comfort. But this is natural and extremely pardonable.
The language is exceedingly clear and easy--far nearer to German of
the present day than Layamon's own verse, or the prose of the _Ancren
Riwle_, is to English prose and verse of the nineteenth century; the
differences being, as a rule, rather matters of spelling or phrase
than of actual vocabulary. It is very well suited both to the poet's
needs and to the subject; there being little or nothing of that
stammer--as it may be called--which is not uncommon in mediaeval work,
as if the writer were trying to find words that he cannot find for a
thought which he cannot fully shape even to himself. In short, there
is in the particular kind, stage, and degree that accomplishment which
distinguishes the greater from the lesser achievements of literature.

[Sidenote: Kudrun.]

_Kudrun_[110] or _Gudrun_--it is a little curious that this should be
the name of the original joint-heroine of the _Nibelungenlied_, of the
heroine of one of the finest and most varied of the Icelandic sagas,
the _Laxdaela_, and of the present poem--is far less known to general
students of literature than its companion. Nor can it be said that
this comparative neglect is wholly undeserved. It is an interesting
poem enough; but neither in story nor in character-interest, in
arrangement nor in execution, can it vie with the _Nibelungen_, of
which in formal points it has been thought to be a direct imitation.
The stanza is much the same, except that there is a much more general
tendency to arrange the first couplet in single masculine rhyme and
the second in feminine, while the second half of the fourth line is
curiously prolonged to either ten or eleven syllables. The first
refinement may be an improvement: the second certainly is not, and
makes it very difficult to a modern ear to get a satisfactory swing on
the verse. The language, moreover (though this is a point on which I
speak with some diffid