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PART VI.

METRE.

§ I. Definitions.

631 RHYTHM (¿vėμós, numerus) is a certain symmetry produced by a methodical arrangement of words according to their long and short syllables, and by a recurrence of an emphasis at intervals. If the rhythm is not regulated by fixed laws, it is said to be prosaic (solutæ orationis numerus). If the emphasis recurs according to a definite measure, the rhythm becomes metre (μéτpov). Every recurrence of the emphasis is called a metre, and those collections of metres, which recur as distinct wholes, are called verses (orixo, versus).

632 The emphasis on which the metre depends is called the ictus, because the time was marked by a stamp of the foot; and when the emphatic and unemphatic parts of the metre are contradistinguished, they are called the arsis (äpois) and thesis (Oéois) respectively, i. e. the raising and lowering of the voice.

633 It has been already mentioned (34) that a short syllable is considered as one mora, or time, and that a long syllable has two of such mora.

634 It is customary to call every division of time, from two short syllables up to eight mora, in certain combinations, by the name of a foot; thus we have,

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Although the student will meet with this nomenclature everywhere, and must therefore be acquainted with it, there can be no doubt that it points to a classification, which is not only unnecessary, but erroneous. Indeed, it would not be too much to say, that all the difficulties which beset the study of metre arise from the original blunder of giving the name foot, indiscriminately, to a mere arsis or thesis and to a complete metre. While, therefore, in the following remarks, it is thought necessary to retain this nomenclature for certain combinations of syllables, care will be

taken to make as little use as possible of the term foot in speaking of them.

635 If in any verse the regular course of the rhythm is preceded by an unemphatic syllable, whether long or short, or by a Pyrrhichius, this is called an anacrusis, or "back-stroke." If the anacrusis extends to three or four more, it is called a basis. It is customary to mark the onward course of the ictus by the acute accent, that of the back-stroke by the grave, and the basis by the two crossing one another; thus the Asclepiadean verse is marked Mace nás atavis || édite | régibus ||.

The Alcaic,

Vidés ut | alta || stét nive | cándidum ||·

If the rhythm is supposed to be imperfect or redundant, to the same extent, at the end of the verse, the metre is said to be catalectic. or hypercatalectic. Thus the Saturnian measure, or tripudiatio, which is common to old Latin with nearly all languages, properly begins with an anacrusis; e. g.

Màlúm dabúnt Me|télli || Nævijó poľétæ || •

The king was ín his | párlour || counting | oút his | móney [. And the common pentameter consists of two catalectic tripodia, as compared with the accompanying hexameter, which is acatalectic; e. g.

Grátulor | Echaliám titulis accédere | véstris ||
Victorém victa || súccubulísse que|rór ||.

636 Rhythms are divided into three classes, according to the ratio between the arsis and the thesis. If the ratio is, they are called equal; if, they are termed double; if, they are designated as hemiolian (pórios, sesquialter) rhythms. To these some add the epitrite rhythms, in which the ratio is ₫.

637 The dactyl and anapast furnish equal rhythms; for

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But practically, all metre may be considered as made up of equal or double rhythms; i. e. the ratio of the arsis to the thesis is always, in reality, either 1 : 1 or 2: 1; and even the double rhythms are so arranged metrically that the result is the equal ratio.

638 We shall begin, therefore, with the primitive equal rhythms, i. e. the dactylic, and show how the others are successively derived from and assimilated to these.

§ II. Equal Rhythms.

A. Dactylic Verse.

639 The only dactylic rhythm, which appears in long systems of single lines, is called the Hexameter, because it contains six metres, or repetitions of the ictus. In these metres the arsis is always a long syllable; the thesis may be either one long or two short syllables (i. e. the foot, as it is called in the ordinary nomenclature, may be either a dactyl or a spondee), except in the fifth metre, which, as a general rule, will take the latter, and in the sixth, which must take the former alternative, i.e. the fifth will, in nearly every case, be a dactyl, and the sixth will, in every case, be a spondee. The following are examples:

τὸν δ ̓ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πόδας ωκὺς ̓Αχιλλεύς.

2དང་]2་་]2་ང]2vང]Zu་]+

πολλὰς δ ̓ ὀφθίμους ψυχὰς ̓́Αϊδι προΐαψεν.

οἵνεκα τὸν Χρύσην ἠτίμησ ̓ ἀρητῆρα.

As the sixth metre always terminates the system, the quantity of the last syllable is not taken into account, or is common, as it is called. In Homer, dactyls are more usual than spondees in any one of the first five feet. In the fifth foot the spondee is of very

rare occurrence,

640 It is considered almost essential to the harmony of a line that some one or more of its metres should be divided between different words. The division is called a Casura or "cutting."

The half of a metre is technically called a Hemimer (nμμepés), and the most usual and pleasing caesuras, which divide the third and fourth metres respectively, are called the penthemimeral and hephthemimeral cœsuras.

641 In the dactylic hexameter there is generally a penthemimeral cæsura, as in all the lines quoted above; sometimes also a hephthemimeral caesura, as in the first two of those lines.

642 Sometimes a sort of penthemimeral caesura is effected by dividing a dactyl in the third metre between a trochee,—whether constituting a whole word, or forming its last two syllables,-and a short syllable at the beginning of a word. There are three instances of this in the first six lines of the Iliad, and the practice is very common throughout the poem. The two species are given in the consecutive lines,

ὑμῖν μὲν θεοὶ δοῖεν Ολύμπια δώματ ̓ ἔχοντες

ἐκπέρσαι Πριάμοιο πόλιν εὖ δ ̓ οἴκαδ ̓ ἱκέσθαι

643 As the first syllable of every metre necessarily has the ictus, we often find in Homer that a syllable naturally short is made long, in consequence of its belonging to the arsis. This is particularly the case when there is a cæsura also. As an example of both we may take

φίλε κασίγνητε κόμισαί τε με δός τε μοι ἵππους.

644 Many peculiarities of Homeric versification are due to the loss of an original digamma (above, 18, (j)); thus it is certain that Il. I. 193,

ἕως ὁ ταῦθ' ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν, was written and pronounced originally

aFos ó тave pμaive, K.T.λ. (above, 145, 170).

645 Not only does custom require, that, at the close of a dactylic system, the dactyl should be represented by a spondee, or indeed by a trochee, in which the thesis is represented by a single syllable, or even a single time; but the ictus alone may occasionally

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