For men have marble, women waxen, minds, And therefore are they form'd as marble will; The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill: Then call them not the authors of their ill, No more than wax shall be accounted evil, Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil. (SHAKSPERE: _The Rape of Lucrece_, st. 178. 1594.) In a far country that I cannot name, And on a year long ages past away, A King there dwelt in rest and ease and fame, And richer than the Emperor is to-day: The very thought of what this man might say From dusk to dawn kept many a lord awake, For fear of him did many a great man quake. (WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise; The Proud King._ 1868.) The "rime royal" stanza is one of Chaucer's contributions to English verse, and about 14,000 lines of his poetry are in this form. Its use by King James in the _King's Quhair_ was formerly thought to be the source of the name; but it seems more likely that the name, like the form, was of French origin, and is to be connected with such terms as _chant royal_ and _ballat royal_, familiar in the nomenclature of courtly poetry (see Schipper, vol. i. p. 426). The stanza was used by Chaucer with marvellous skill for purposes of continuous narrative, and was a general favorite among his imitators in the fifteenth century, being used by Lydgate, Occleve, Hawes, Dunbar, then by Skelton, and by Barclay in the _Ship of Fooles_. It appears popular as late as the time of Sackville's part of the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (1563).[9] Later than Shakspere's _Rape of Lucrece_ it is rarely found. (But see Milton's unfinished poem on _The Passion_, where he used a form of the rime royal with concluding alexandrine.) Strictly speaking, the "rime royal" is always in five-stress verse, but in the following specimen the same rime-scheme appears in the irregular six-or-seven-stress verse of one of the Mysteries. The story sheweth further, that, after man was blyste, The Lord did create woman owte of a ribbe of man, Which woman was deceyvyd with the Serpentes darkned myste; By whose synn ower nature is so weake no good we can; Wherfor they were dejectyd and caste from thence than Unto dolloure and myseri and to traveyle and payne, Untyll Godes spryght renuid; and so we ende certayne. (Prologue to Norwich Whitsun Play of the Creation and Fall. In Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i p. 5.) _ababcca_ Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, Another still, to quiet and retrieve. (BROWNING: _The Guardian Angel._ 1855.) _ababccb_