Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/408

 382 ON THE LANGUAGE, METRES AND PROSODY lY. The Structure of the Comic Trimeter, 1. frequently admits such lines as are divided in medio versu with- out the quasi-csesura, and, though somewhat rarely, such also as divide the line by the dipodias of scansion. PlutUS, 68. ttTToXo) TOV avOpOiTTOV | KaKKTTa TOVTOVL. Acharn. 183. crTrovSas ^epets [ t(wv a/XTreXwv | Ter/x7^/>teva)v ; 2. It readily admits also a Spondee in the 5th foot, without any regard to the law of Cretic termination ; as Plut. 2. AovXov y€V€(r$ai Trapa^povovvros j SeanoTOV. 29. KaKws hrpaTTOV KoX 7rivr]<s rjv. | OlSa rot. 63. Ai^ov TOV avSpa kol tov opvtv rov O^ov. 3. And even when a Dactyl occupies the 5th foot, the modes of concluding the verse which usually occur are those most directly unlike to the tragic conclusion : as Plut. 55. TTvOoLfxeO' av tov xprja-fidv ly/xwv, ] o Tt voet. while forms of this kind are comparatively rare : Plut. 823. "Fivhov fieveLV rjv eSaKve yap | ra ^Xi^apa jjlov, 1149. ETretr' aTroXiTrtov tovs Ocovs ivOdSe /xems; V. The Iambic Tetrameter Catalectic, 1. peculiar to Comedy, consists of eight feet all but a syllable; or may be considered as two dimeters, of which the first is complete in the technical measure, the second is one syllable short of it. This tetrameter line, the most harmonious of Iambic verses, is said to have its second dimeter catalectic to its first : the same mode of speaking prevails as to Trochaic and Anapestic tetrameters. The table of scansion below, exhibiting all the admissible feet, is drawn up in every point agreeably to Person's account of the feet sepa- rately allowable; except that Elmsley's plea for the admission (but very rarely) of '^v^— of a common word in 4th is here received as legitimate. See his able argument on that question, Edinh. Rev. u. s. p. 84. 2. In the resolved or trisyllabic feet one restriction obtains; that the concurrence of the feet — ww or v-iww and ww— in that order never takes place; a rule which even in the freer construction of the Trimeter (ch. ii.) is always strictly observed from its essential necessity.