In that noblest of our verses, the unrhymed iambic pentameter, two short or lightly-accented syllables may often gracefully and effectively take the place of a long or heavily-accented one; but great metrists contrive their pauses by the artistic choice and position of their syllables, and not by leaving them out.

Already Marlowe had brought the English unrhymed pentameter (which had hitherto justified but half its name, by being always blank and never verse) to a perfection of melody, harmony, and variety which has never been surpassed.

By substituting the slow and verbose pentameter of what is called the classic school of English poetry for the remarkably forth-right and simple eight-syllabic measure of the original, the translator has contrived to lose almost wholly that homely flavor of the old poet, which Goethe carefully preserved.