In this case the cauda is as long as one pes, consisting, as it does, of four verses. Very seldom, says Dante, are there more than two pedes to a cauda. This, however, applies only to the Italian literature of his time. In Provençal poetry there are many instances of three pedes in a stanza; and the favourite form of the Italian poets of the cinquecento, the ottava rima, must also be defined as a stanza consisting of three pedes and a cauda. The most important form of lyrical Italian poetry, the sonnet, consists of pedes and cauda. The two quatrains show the required repetitio unius odæ, and the two terzine form the cauda. If the repetition of a melodic and metrical phrase takes place after the volta, and only there, the two groups in the second part of the stanza are called versus, while the first undivided part assumes the name of frons. The number of versus scarcely ever exceeds two. This form is also very common in Provençal poetry. In the following stanza of Guillem IX. of Poitiers, the first three lines form the frons, and the last four are divided into two versus of two lines each: { Eu conosc ben cel qui bem di Frons { e cel quim vol mal atressi, { e conosc ben celui quem ri, Versus 1. { e sil pro s’azautan de mi, { conosc assaz; { Versus 2. { qu’atressi dei voler lor fi { e lor solaz. These two principles of division in a stanza, viz., pedes and cauda, or frons and versus, Dante seems to consider as the most important. In both cases the stanza is actually divided into three parts; and this, indeed, was the fundamental principle of the Italian lyrical stanza, which in this respect, in conformity with the middle-high-German strophe, differs from the _langue d’oc_. Into old Italian poetry this tripartite division was perhaps introduced from the leonine hexameter, which, as has been stated before, sometimes took a similar form. In the Teutonic languages it seems much older; and indeed it is to be found in the old Icelandic ljôđahâttr, where the first two lines are of equal length and belong to one another, while the third one, longer than each, stands by itself. In the German popular epic this principle is not visible; but it appears again unmistakeably in the mediæval ‘minneliet.’ The usual form in the latter is pedes and cauda, which here are called Stollen and Abgesang. It is impossible here to consider the interesting phenomena arising from the conflict of this principle with the Provençal bias in those cases where the German minnesinger tried to imitate the stanzas of the troubadours. The prevalent principle in Provençal poetry seems to have been the division of a stanza into two corresponding parts; and, accordingly, to the above-mentioned combinations two more of great importance must be added. The first of these, which Dante also is acquainted with, is the division of a stanza into pedes and versus. In this case the stanza is