Collin further insists that the only way to understand Shakespeare’s versification is to understand his situations and his characters.  Rules avail little.  If we do not feel the meaning of the music, we shall never understand the meaning of the verse.  Shakespeare’s variations from the normal blank verse are to be interpreted from this point of view.  Hence what the metricists call “irregularities” are not irregularities at all.  Collin examines the more important of these irregularities and tries to account for them.

1.  Short broken lines as in I, 1-5:  I am to learn. Antonio completes this line by a shrug of the shoulders or a gesture.  “It would be remarkable,” concludes Collin, “if there were no interruptions or pauses even though the characters speak in verse.”  Another example of this breaking of the line for dramatic purposes is found in I, 3-123 where Shylock suddenly stops after “say this” as if to draw breath and arrange his features. (Sic!)

2.  A verse may be abnormally long and contain six feet.  This is frequently accidental, but in M of V it is used at least once deliberately—­in the oracular inscriptions on the caskets: 

  “Who chooseth me shall gain what men desire.” 
  “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.” 
  “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he has.”

Collin explains that putting these formulas into Alexandrines gives them a stiffness and formality appropriate to their purpose.

3.  Frequently one or two light syllables are added to the close of the verse: 

  Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster.

or

  Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice.

Again, in III, 2-214 we have two unstressed syllables: 

  But who comes here?  Lorenzo and his infidel?

“Shakespeare uses this unaccented gliding ending more in his later works to give an easier more unconstrained movement.”

4.  Occasionally a syllable is lacking, and the foot seems to halt as in V, 1-17: 

  As far as Belmont.  In such a night, etc.

Here a syllable is lacking in the third foot.  But artistically this is no defect.  We cannot ask that Jessica and Lorenzo always have the right word at hand.  The defective line simply means a pause and, therefore, instead of being a blemish, is exactly right.

5.  On the other hand, there is often an extra light syllable before the caesura. (I, 1-48): 

  Because you are not merry; and ’twere as easy, etc.

This extra syllable before the pause gives the effect of a slight retardation.  It was another device to make the verse easy and unconstrained.

6.  Though the prevailing verse is iambic pentameter, we rarely find more than three or four real accents.  The iambic movement is constantly broken and compelled to fight its way through.  This gives an added delight, since the ear, attuned to the iambic beat, readily recognizes it when it recurs.  The presence of a trochee is no blemish, but a relief: