the second and the third accented ones. Among occasional variations of
the normal strophe as here described may be mentioned the following: The
end-rhyme is in a few instances feminine instead of masculine; while on
the other hand the ending of the first half-lines is occasionally
masculine instead of feminine, that is, the caesura is not "ringing." In
a few scattered instances we find strophes that rhyme throughout in the
caesura as well as at the end of lines;[10] occasionally the first and
second lines, or still less frequently the third and fourth, alone have
caesural rhyme.[11] Rhyming of the caesura may be regarded as accidental
in most cases, but it is reproduced as exactly as possible in this
translation.

[10] Strophes 1, 17, 102, and possibly 841.
[11] Strophes 18, 69, 103, 115, 129, 148, 177, 190, 198, 222, 231,
239, 293, 325, 345, 363, 485, 584, 703, 712, 859, 864, 894, 937,
1022, 1032, 1114, 1225, 1432, 1436, 1460, 1530, 1555, 1597, 1855,
1909, 1944, 1956, 2133, 2200, 2206, 2338.

In the original the opening strophe, which is altogether more regular
than the average and is, moreover, one of the few that have also complete
caesural rhyme, is as follows:

Uns ist in alten maeren / wunders vil geseit
von heleden lobebaeren, / von grozer arebeit,
von frouden, hochgeziten, / von weinen und von klagen,
von kuener recken striten / muget ir nu wunder hoeren sagen.

Here the only place where the unaccented syllable is lacking before the
accented is before _wunders_ at the beginning of the second half of the
first line. A strophe showing more typical irregularities is, for