These closing lines of the poem furnish an important opportunity to compare the Latin half-lines with those in Anglo-Saxon. Each half seems to be influenced by the metrical nature of the other; the Anglo-Saxon being a little more regular in the number of syllables than usual, the Latin less regular. Since, to the ear of the writer, the two halves of each verse were doubtless fairly equivalent, metrically, and since each of the Latin half-lines appears to have two accents, these combination verses have been thought to be an argument for the "two-accent" theory of Anglo-Saxon verse. On the other hand, the advocates of the four-accent theory would read the Latin half-lines with four stresses each, on the ground that nearly every syllable was stressed in the chanting of such religious verse (_lú-cís aúc-tór_, etc.). See also the specimens on pp. 13 and 14, above. Alle beon he bliþe Þat to my song lyþe: A song ihc schal ȝou singe Of Mury þe kinge. King he was bi weste So longe so hit laste. Godhild het his quen, Fairer ne miȝte non ben. He hadde a sone þat het Horn, Fairer ne miȝte non beo born, Ne no rein upon birine, Ne sunne upon bischine. (_King Horn_, ll. 1-12. ab. 1200-1250.) The metre of _King Horn_ is very irregular, and has proved somewhat puzzling to scholars. It seems to be the direct result of the primitive "long line" broken into two halves by internal rime. The number of accents varies greatly: we may have verses which are easily read with two, such as-- "Into schupes borde At the furst worde." Yet these it is evident might also be read with three accents, as in the following couplet also: "The se bigan to flowe, And Horn child to rowe." According as one reads the Anglo-Saxon verse with two or four accents to the half-line, he will regard the typical half-line of _King Horn_ as made up of two or four accents. If the fundamental number was two, the additional accented syllables were doubtless introduced under the influence of the French eight-syllable couplet. It is not difficult to see how the more regular (Latin or French) and the less regular (native) measures might have been confused, and soon have coalesced in popular use. Ten Brink, reading the _King Horn_ lines with four accents, speaks of them as "formed entirely on the Teutonic principle, with two accents upon the sonorous close of the verse, so that it appears to be an organic continuation of the chief form in Layamon and in Ælfred's _Proverbs_. This circumstance makes the poem exceptional among the early English romances." He also speaks of "an unmistakably strophic construction in the text as we have it." (_English Literature_, Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 227.)