The highest principle of art, variety in unity, seems to be here attained. In many cases this principle of connecting the different stanzas led to the most childish and trifling artificialities, as, for instance, in what the ‘Leys d’Amors’ calls rims retrogradatz, where the second stanza begins with the last rhyme of the first, and reproduces all the subsequent rhymes in reversed order. This becomes yet more absurd if applied, as it sometimes is, to a single stanza, or even a single verse. In this case the stanza or verse has to be constructed in such a way that, without altering their meaning, the lines or words can change their places. The following lines, for instance, Vengutz es lo senhor d’amon Salutz grans portar en lo mon, could equally well be read the last first; or even the words could change their position, in this way: Le senhor d’amon es vengutz portar en lo mon grans salutz. The ‘Leys d’Amors’ adds, that he who likes to ‘despendre son temps’ with such trifles may even find words like papa, tafata, in which the different syllables can be changed ad libitum. The fourth and last class of rhymes, as given by the ‘Leys d’Amors,’ the rims dictionals, contains, for the greater part, unimportant trifles of this kind. Rim dictional itself means the combination of two words in the rhyming syllables, which can be derived from each other, by either taking away or adding a syllable. Thus the feminine and masculine forms of the adjective and past participle, at-ada, ut-uda, stand in the relation of rims dictionals. An example of another kind of derivation is given in the following lines: Mayres de Dieu prega to filh humil, quem denhe dar, sil platz humilitat; per miels tener lo dreg sendier util que menals bos al port d’utilitat. This is an arbitrary invention, without any intrinsic value for the uses of genuine poetry. But some of the subdivisions given show how much the decline of the poetry of the troubadours was the consequence of their relying too much on the formal side of their art. Some poets seem to have particularly delighted in introducing rims leonismes parfaitz, or, as they are also called, rims equivocs, which, besides being different as regards the meaning of the words, show also a slight difference in sound of the vowels. In the following lines, for instance, Sias tempratz e gent apres En tas paraulas et apres, the first apres, being the participle of apprendre, sounds the _e_ a little more open than the second apres, afterwards. It was considered a great proof of poetical finish to introduce different vowels in combination with the same consonants into a stanza. The elder Gavaudan seems to have written the following verses entirely for this purpose: Mos sens es cl_a_rs als bos entended_o_rs; trop es osc_u_rs a selh que no sap gaire; per que cuj_a_rs lai on no val val_o_rs, non es sab_e_rs ni sens a mo vejaire.