0 a poem with one or more sets of three stanzas (= groups of lines) and a refrain (= a repeated part):
Our hero, the versifying soldier with the oversize nose, improvises a ballade during the duel.
He joined a criminal organization, the "Brotherhood of the Coquille", and wrote some of his ballades in its secret jargon.
Our ballade, of course, uses exclusively black notation.
As in any ballade, the place to begin to examine the text is the refrain line.
Yet the ballade's behaviour requires consideration of one additional role for colour, and this is colour in respect to proportion and mensuration.
