Phonetics – How Was ‘Feast’ Pronounced in Early Modern English?

early-modern-englishphonetics

In Romeo and Juliet, Capulet delivers a speech to Paris about his consent for him to court Juliet. With the exception of the first three lines, his speech would follow a coupled rhyme scheme…

16 But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart.
My will to her consent is but a part.
An she agreed within her scope of choice,
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
20 This night, I hold an old accustomed feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest
Such as I love. And you among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my numbers more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
25 Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.

However, this pattern is broken with the third couplet feast and guest. This happens again towards the end of the scene, which leads me to believe that feast should be pronounced /fest/. Is there any other evidence of feast being pronounced as such during this time period? The etymology shows that feast was derived from the French, feste, in the 13th century, but that was 300 years before Shakespeare was born…

Best Answer

TLDR: For John Donne, who was a contemporary of Shakespeare, it appears they weren't perfect rhymes, but good near-rhymes. Looking at what words John Donne rhymed with feast, guest, and rest, in his poetry, John Donne usually rhymed feast with beast, while he rhymed guest with words like breast, chest, possest, and rest, that we would think of rhyming today. However, he occasionally used a rhyme between these two sets of words, like beast and rest.

How were these words actually pronounced by Shakespeare? Guest had a short vowel in Middle English and has the same short vowel today, so it presumably was pronounced [gɛst]. Feast started out in Middle English with the long vowel [ɛː], but the Great Vowel Shift, which was well underway when Shakespeare wrote, raised [ɛː] to the value it has today, [iː]. So it would have been pronounced somewhere between these two, maybe as [feːst]. Since they were good near-rhymes, it seems unlikely that feast had the vowel it does today.

John Donne (1572—1631), who wrote his poems at approximately the same time as Shakespeare, rhymed feast with beast four times, and did not rhyme it with anything else.

And let his carrion coarse be a longer feast
To the Kings dogges, then any other beast.

The tables groane, as though this feast
Would, as the flood, destroy all fowle and beast.

You, and not only you, but all toyl'd beasts
Rest duly; at night all their toyles are dispensed;
But in their beds commenced
Are other labours, and more dainty feasts;

So may thy pastures with their flowery feasts,
As suddenly as Lard, fat thy leane beasts;

However, he rhymes beast with jest and rest, as well as feast.

We will not strive with Love that's a shee beaste;
But playinge wee are bounde, and yeald in Jest;

Can use his horse, goate, wolfe, and every beast,
And is not Asse himselfe to all the rest.

And looking at what Donne rhymes with guest, we have

That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest.

this bowre vnfit for such a gueste,
but since she makes it now her Inn,
Would god twere like her sacred breast
most fayre without, most rich within.

TIS lost, to trust a Tombe with such a guest,
Or to confine her in a marble chest.

So, of a lone unhaunted place possest,
Did this soules second Inne, built by the guest,
This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.

Looking at what he rhymes with rest, while he does rhyme it with beast, most of the time he rhymes rest with a word like best, blest, breast, devest, digest, possest, protest, west, which we would think of as rhyming in modern English.

From this, I would conclude feast did not rhyme with guest in Elizabethan English (at least, the variety that John Donne spoke), but was a good near-rhyme.

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