Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/434

 408 ON THE LANGUAGE,^ METRES AND PEOSODY in a note of great and successful acuteness, he examines and settles a curious point in the main subject itself "178. Hodie hie ri kar malim, et rjaTpaTTT, v. 531. Nam longe rarius, quam putaram, anapoestum in hoc metri genere inchoat ultima vocis syllaba." The whole note will amply repay the trouble of perusal. III. PROSODY. On Syllabic Quantity, and on its Differences in Heroic and Dramatic Verse. 1. By syllabic quantity is here meant the quantity of a syllable under these circumstances : the vowel, being unquestionably short, pre- cedes a pair of consonants of such a nature that it may any where be pronounced either distinctly apart from them, or in combination with the first of the two. If the vowel be pronounced apart from those consonants, as in ttc- Tpa?, that syllable is said to be short by nature. If the vowel be pronounced in combination with the first of those consonants, as in Trer-pa?, the syllable then is said to be long by position. 2. The subjoined list comprises all the pairs of consonants which may begin a word, and also permit a short vowel within the same word to form a short syllable. i. Trp, Kp, rp : cjyp, XRy ^P ' Pp^ yp, h- ii. ttX, kX, tX : ^X, ;(X, ^X. — iii. tti/, kv : x^^* ^V' — iv. t/x. The only remaining pairs, /?X, yX : 8/x : and /xv, which are at once initial, and in a very few cases permissive, may, on account of that rarity, be passed over for the present. But the following pairs, k/a : XP-) ^P- ' TV : cfiv, though not initial yet within the same word 2^ermissive, deserve to be stated here, as they will afterwards be noticed. 3. More than twenty other combinations of consonants, (along with if/, $, t„) though qualified to be initial, are of course foreign to the pur- pose, as never being permissive also; at least in the practice of those authors to whom these remarks are confined. The combinations last mentioned it may be allowed in future to call non-permissive ; and for this reason, that neither within the same word, nor between one word and another, (of verse at least,) do they permit a preceding short vowel to be pronounced distinctly apart : it seems to be coupled with them always by an irresistible attraction.