Rondeau, or Rondo, a sort of old poem, deriving its name, according to Ménage, from its form, and because it still turns back again to the first verse, and thus goes round. The common rondeau consists of thirteen verses, eight of which are in one rhyme and five in another. It is divided into couplets, at the end of the second and third of which the beginning of the rondeau is repeated, and that, if possible, in an equivocal or punning sense. The rondeau is a popular poem in France, but is little known amongst us. Marrot and Voltaire have succeeded the best in it. Rapin remarks, that if the rondeau be not very exquisite, it is intolerably bad. In all the ancient ones, observes Ménage, the verse preceding has a less complete sense, and yet joins agreeably with that of the close, without depending necessarily thereon. This rule, well observed, makes the rondeau more ingenious, and is one of the artifices of the poem. Some of the older writers speak of the rondeau or rondel as a kind of air appropriated to dancing.