Cap Verses (To)

Having the metre fixed and the last letter of the previous line given, to add a verse beginning with the given letter (of the same metre or not, according to prearrangement) thus:

English.

The way was long, the wind was cold (D).

Dogs with their tongues their wounds do heal (L).

Like words congealed in northern air (R).

Regions Cæsar never knew (W).

With all a poet’s ecstasy (Y).

You may deride my awkward pace, etc. etc.

Latin.

Nil pictis timidus navita puppibus (S).

Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum (M).

Myrtoum pavidus nauta secet mare (E).

Est qui nec veteris pocula Massici (T).

Illum, si proprio condidit horreo (O).

O, et presidium… . (as long as you please).

⁂ It would make a Christmas game to cap proper names: as Plato, Otway, Young, Goldsmith, etc., or to cap proverbs, as: “Rome was not built in a day”; “Ye are the salt of the earth”; “Hunger is the best sauce”; “Example is better than precept”; “Time and tide wait for no man”; etc.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.