A Sketch

[milo]

idk but not promoting "was" or "of" in those instances would just be ignoring meter entirely (again see that famous line, 'NOW is the WINter OF our DISconTENT', or---if is rather than was---'the QUAliTY of MERcy IS not STRAINED')

i see the already line may be not reading strict IP, if one reads "already" only the one way, but "already" happens to have two standard pronunciations one can use to have the line trip perfectly (was ALreaDY at HOME, alREAdy DRESSED)

The 2 standards are ALLready and alREADy - never AlreadY - I challenge you to try saying ALreadY - the last syllable would bever get promoted that way.

[quote]

idk but not promoting "was" or "of" in those instances would just be ignoring meter entirely (again see that famous line, 'NOW is the WINter OF our DISconTENT', or---if is rather than was---'the QUAliTY of MERcy IS not STRAINED')

Shakespeare did not famously use predominant meter in the first line but rather the rule of threes - not letting readers awkwardly decide to promote or not promote

The second one I would read as a pyrhic/spondee

theQual iTY ofMER cyis NOT STRAINED which beautifully pushes the stress onto NOT which is the point of the line.  If I were to criticize this line it would be the unnatural stress forced on to the end of quality and thinking about it, there is probably some solution to that I am not thinking of because it is not good - I may look into it later with some deeper thought.

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That being said, if you contort the way you naturally speak you could force most of them (not the already line sadly) but you would be forcing it, they would not naturally read IP.  Reading it through the first time I treated it as non-metric verse because - read naturally, that is what it is, so I had no reason to contort my reading into IP