Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/431

 OF THE GREEK DRAMATISTS. 405 and Trochaic verse ; and that is, to make — w>^— the sign of the ap- I III parent syllables involved in the discussion, and — (k^) v^ — or — v-/ — the sign of the real sounds as they are supposed to have been uttered. Nuhes 131. Xoyaiv aKpi/Bwy crxt-vSaXdixovs ixaOrjcrofxaL ; — w w — Iph. A. 882. ets ap 'I^tycVetav 'EXcVt;? i/ocrros y)V TrcTrpw/xevos ; 4. Whatever truth or probability may be found in the following attempt to account for the — ww— Proprii ISTominis in the Trochaic or Iambic verse of Tragedy, (and for the admission of that licence with common words also into the Iambics of Comedy,) the whole merit of the discovery, if any, is due to S. Clarke, whose suggestion {ad II. B. V. 811) is here pursued, enforced, and developed. Clarke, after quoting instances of ww— Proprii Nominis, but only in the 4th foot of the Trimeter, proceeds to argue thus. If the Iambic verse of Tragedy, under other circumstances, rejects in the 4th the v^'w— as equal in time to, and admits only the v^— or equiva- lent www, then it is clear that the proper names which exhibit ww — to the eye could never have been pronounced at full length in three distinct syllables, but must have been hurried in utterance, so as to carry only w— to the ear. And since long proper names (as Clarke justly observes) are from their nature liable to be rapidly spoken j in the following verses, Phcen. 764 = 769. ya/xovs 8' dS€Xrjs 'Ai/rtyovT^s TratSos t€ crov. Androm. 14. Tio vrjcnoiTr] ISovTrToXifJuo Sopos yepas, and in that above, ets ap' 'Ic^iyeVeiav 'EXcVr^s v6crT0<; tjv 7re:rpa)/xeVog ; naturally enough the names 'Avrtyoi/T^s and NovTrroXejua) and 'I^tyeVetai/ might be slurred into something like 'Avr'yovr;?, NovTrrXejaw, 'I^'yeVetav : the ear of course would find no cause of offence, and the eye takes no cognizance of the matter. 5. If this mode of solution be allowed as probable at least in the department of proper names in Tragic verse to which it bears direct application, by parity of argument perhaps it may be extended to the similar case of common words used in Comic verse also. Take for instance the line above quoted ; Aoycov (XKpL^oiv crxtvSaXa/xovs /xa^ifcro/xat ; What was the objection to the old and vulgar reading, o-xtvSaX/xovs ?