Page:The Hymns of the Rigveda (English Translation).pdf/13

Rh can choose? Or does the greater freedom and diversity in the placement of long and short syllables at the beginning of the series also reveal a corresponding greater freedom and diversity in the distribution of rhythmic accents? To decide this, we have no other way than to search for traces of rhythm in the inclinations and disinclinations of the Vedic poets regarding the various possible combinations of short and long syllables, which, as we may expect, play a decisive role in choosing those combinations as the determining agent. We believe that, as subsequent explanations must make clear, we can arrive at understandable results — at least understandable when measured by standards not unreasonably strict, such as those of Greek rhythmics —, we assume that in such long syllables, which could just as easily be short, positions for the ictus can be found, while we consider short syllables or long syllables that are interchangeable with short ones as unstressed. We have no reason to assume artificial constructs, such as dactylic anapests with the measurement [mention of measurement], in Vedic metrics. There is a lack here of all phenomena that would form a homogeneous environment for them, and there is a lack of all signs that would reveal their existence to unbiased thinking. It hardly needs to be noted that short syllables are also capable of bearing the ictus before a pause. What will occupy us more is the phenomenon that here and there, the Vedic poets, perhaps carelessly or influenced by a less than perfect sense of quantity differences, have occasionally contented themselves with a short syllable instead of the customary length at a position that carries the ictus (e.g., so, that "dadhishe" or "vasavah" instead of the customary length