Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/418

 392 ON THE LANGUAGE, METRES AND PKOSODY 5. Of all those nineteen. Tetrameters described in § 3, one only is destitute of the division (or ccesura technically so called) after the first dipodia : NubeS) 353. lavr apa, ravra KXejoDW/xov avrai | rov piif/acnnv X^^^ IBovarat. (Elmsley, p. 94.) 6. This division after the first dipodia is indispensable, if the 2nd foot be a Dactyl and the 3rd a Spondee : therefore the last syllable of the Dactyl may not begin an Iambic or (w ) Bacchean word. The following verses, faulty on that account, Eccl. 514. ^vfJi^ovXoLcnv ttTracrat? | vjjui/ ■^(prjcroiiJiai. koX yap cK€t [xoi — Equit. 505. yv<xyKat,€V eTrrj ] Xi^ovrds y e? to Oiarpov irapa^-qvaL — have been corrected, the one by Brunck, the other by Person, and by both from the same delicacy of ear, thus : ivfx^ovXoLCTLV I Tracrats vfuv | y(jprj(TOiixai. koX yap c/<€t /xoL. 7jvayKat,€v Xi^ovras eTrr] irpos to Oearpov irapa^rjvaL. (Vide Porson, lix. ix. = 53, 54.) 7. The division after the first dimeter is as strictly observed in the long Anapestic as in the long Trochaic verse (ch. vi. § 3); and, as in that, cannot take place after a preposition merely, or article belonging in Syntax to the second dimeter : Plut. 487, 8. aXX rjSr] XPV'^ I '^'' ^^7^'^ vjxas | (TO(f>6v, u) vlkt](T€T€ ttjvSl, iv TOio-L XoyoLS I avTiXiyovres' j fj^aXaKov 8' evScoo-eTC /xr/Sev. These lines exhibit, beside the one necessary division after the first dimeter, that after the fii'st di2:>odia also, which always gives the most agreeable finish to the verse. 8. It has been remarked, on the authority of Elmsley (^dde ch. v. § 5), that the Plutus was written after the versification of the comic stage had assumed an appearance of smoothness and regularity quite unknown before. The following analysis of 110 long Anapestic verses from v. 486 of the Plutus to V. 597 (there being no v. bQQ in Dobree's edition) may very happily illustrate the truth of that remark. In 104 of those lines, that which is here regarded as the most har- monious structure of the verse uniformly prevails. Of the six which remain, three verses (517, 555, 5SQ) diff'er only by having the Dactyl in quinto : 555. CO? fxaKapirrjVy tS AdfxaTep,  rov /3tov ai^Tou KaTeAe^as.