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Background

I'm reading A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a lot of the dialogues and monologues are rhymes. But some times, these rhymes aren't rhymes at all.

For instance

So should the murder'd look, and so should I,

Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty

A bit of a stretch to say the least.

There are also cases where the written words end similarly, but spoken, they do not.

About the wood go swifter than the wind,

And Helena of Athens look thou find

Question

Did these word pairs ever rhyme? Was the state of the language ever such that these lines would be spoken on stage and rhyme perfectly?

With "I" and "cruelty", one could pronounce the latter "cruel-tie", and I wouldn't scoff at the idea that this may have been common at some point.

EDIT

The I/cruelty rhyme is perfectly explained in another Q&A: Was the pronunciation of “symmetry” different in the past?

The same question still remains for the wind/find rhyme.

Alec
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    The carol God rest you merry, gentlemen (16th century or earlier) contains the verse: The Shepherds at those tidings / Rejoiced much in mind, / And left their flocks a feeding / In tempest, storm and wind, / And went to Bethlehem straightway, / This blessed babe to find. – Kate Bunting Jul 26 '20 at 08:18
  • David Crystal - the foremost authority on the English Language - and his son Ben (a Shakespearean actor) discuss the pronunciation of Shakespeare's English, give examples in a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s, and explain why some words do not rhyme in current Modern English. – Greybeard Jul 26 '20 at 09:25
  • @HotLicks - It does answer one of them, but what about the "wind/find" rhyme? – Alec Jul 26 '20 at 11:36
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    Also, can someone explain why this would be downvoted? Is it phrased badly, or should it have been posted elsewhere? – Alec Jul 26 '20 at 11:39
  • Read Peter Shor's answer here: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39945/how-is-winded-pronounced-in-he-winded-a-horn – BeatsMe Jul 26 '20 at 12:06
  • @BeatsMe - That clears it up then. Thanks! – Alec Jul 26 '20 at 12:36

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