Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/435

 OF THE GREEK DRAMATISTS. 409 In turning from the Comic trimeter of Aristophanes to the stately hexameter of Homer, the difference of syllabic quantity must be strik- ingly felt : and that contrast is here purposely taken, to show more clearly in what the great difference consists betwixt the prosody of heroic and that of dramatic verse. 4. Homer seldom allows a short vowel to form a short syllable be- fore any of those permissive pairs lately detailed, and only before some few of them. The following cases occur betwixt one word and another : such correptions within the same word are yet more uncommon. A. 113. OtKot t-^(iLV' KoX yap pa K.XvTaLixv7]aTprj<; TrpojSefiovXa. — 263. Olov JlaptOoov re, ApvavTo. t€, Troi/xiva AaoJi/. — 528. *H, Kal Kvaver)(TLV kir ocfipv(TL vevae KpoviW. — 609. Zevs Se Trpos oV Xi)(p<s rji 'OAv/attio? oiaT€po7rr]'n]<;, 5. Aristophanes (with very few exceptions in Anapestic verse, pointed out by Person, pp. Ix. lxi. = p. 54) never allows a short vowel cicm ictu to form a long syllable with any permissive pair, even within the same word. Plut. 449. TTOioLcnv 6ir-oL<s rj Swdfiei TreTroi^ore? ', Such was, indeed, the vulgar reading, till Dawes (M. C. p. 196) antici- pating, as usual, the Ravenna MS., gave the true text : Hotots o-7rXoi(TLV y Swa/Act TrcTrot^orcs ', 6. Homer, on the other hand, not only in the same word cum ictu, but in the same word extra ictum, and even between two words in the same dehilis positio, makes the syllable long. A. 13. Ado-o/xcvos t€ 6vyar-pa, (jiepoiv t (XTrepciorL airoLva. — 77. 'H /xev /xot 7rp6<fi-p(i)v ^ttco-lv Kal ^epalv dpy]^€LV. — 345. "^fls (fjoLTO' Har-poK-Xos Se <^tAa) limr^iOcd eraipo). A. 57. aXXa-^-prj /cat Ifxav ^e/xcvat ttovov ovk areXea-TOV. I I H. 189. yv(o ScK-Xrjpov arjfjia iSwv, yi]Or](re Se Ovjx^. 7. The only possible case in which Aristophanes might prolong such a syllable would be in the use of verbs like these, ck-Avw, €K-/AatVw, iK-v€v(o, iK-piw, if compounds of that kind ever occur ; because, from the very nature of the compound, Ik must always be pronounced distinct from the initial consonant of the verb. ^