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THE THIRD EDITION.

THIS little Work is now for the third time presented to the 'Public, with anxious endeavours to make it better merit ‘the kind reception with which it has been honoured. A short account of the Trochaic and Anapastic Systems of Tragedy is now added to the Introduction; but Exercises have not been given on those metres, as it is usual for Students to obtain a command over the Iambic Metre before they risk distracting their attention from that prime requisite, by composing in other systems. Additions have been made to the Examples; and a Collection of Greek lines has been introduced, more or less inconsistent with the laws of the Tragic Metres, for the exercise of the Student in discovering their defects.

In this Fourth Edition there will be found a Collection of passages from English Dramatists, comprising those proposed for translation into Greek Iambics in the Classical Tripos from 1825 to 1839, after which year the passages are to be found in the Cambridge Calendars: these are followed by other passages, partly proposed in other Examinations, and partly now first suggested.

In this Fifth Edition the passages proposed in the Classical Tripos for translation into Greek Iambics are continued from 1839 to the present year: as the Cambridge Calendar sometimes contains only a reference instead of the passage at length. When the exercise is shorter than usual, it is to be understood that a passage for translation into Anapæsts was proposed as well as the passage for translation into Iambics.

ON THE

IAMBIC METRE.

1. In explaining the laws of the Iambic Metre, we have to do with the four dissyllable feet, and four of the trisyllable feet.

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2. The Iambic verse of tragedy, called the trimeter, contains six feet, which originally were all iambi; as in

λεωργὰ κἀθέμιστα, σοὶ δὲ θηρίων. ARCHILOCH US.

λέληθεν οὐδὲν, οὐδὲ τῶν ἀμεινόνων.

SIMONIDES.

3. The writers of plays, to assimilate the metre of their dialogue to conversation, introduced spondees into any or all of the odd places, the 1st, 3rd, and 5th; leaving the remaining feet iambi, the 2nd, 4th, and 6th. Examples are,

στέργειν, φιλανθρώπου δὲ παύεσθαι τρόπου. ESCH. Prom. 11.
πάντως δ ̓ ἀνάγκη τῶνδέ μοι τόλμαν σχέθειν. Ibid. 15.

as

4. This liberty was afterwards still farther extended: two short syllables are equivalent to one long one, the last syllable of the iambus so resolved, produced the tribrach; and the last of the spondee similarly treated, changed that foot into the dactyl: while a similar resolution of the first syllable of the spondee introduced the anapæst. But the dactyl and anapæst were excluded from the fifth place, and the anapest from the third..

5. Lastly, as the last syllable of a verse is common, the pyrrhich entered the last place indiscriminately with the iambus; so that, on the whole, the admissible feet are the following:

The sixth, an iambus, or a pyrrhich.

The fifth, an iambus, a spondee, or a tribrach.

The fourth, an iambus, or a tribrach.

The third, an iambus, a spondee, a tribrach, or a dactyl.
The second, an iambus, or a tribrach.

The first, an iambus, spondee, tribrach, dactyl, or anapæst.

6. The last syllable of a line that ends in a short vowel is sometimes cut off when the next line begins with a vowel; as in

σοί φασιν αὐτὸν ἐς λόγους ἐλθεῖν μολόντ ̓

αἰτεῖν, ἀπελθεῖν τ' ἀσφαλῶς τῆς δεῦρ ̓ ὁδοῦ. SOPH. Cd. Col. 1164.

the short final a of μoλóvra, at the end of line 1164, being elided before the diphthong at the beginning of the next line. This can be allowed only when the penult of the word that suffers elision is long.

7. When a proper name contains two short syllables intercepted between two long ones, as Ιππομέδων, ̓Αντιγόνη, 'Ipiyéveia, it may be so introduced as to bring an anapast into any place except the last. Thus, with anapast in

3rd

2nd place, ἣν I | φιγένει | αν ὠνόμαξας ἐν δόμοις. EUR. Iph. Aul. 414. τέταρτον Ιπ | πομέδοντ ̓ | ἀπέστειλεν πατήρ. SOPH. Ed. C. 1307. ὁ δ ̓ αὖ τρίτος τῶνδ ̓ ἱπ | πομέδων | τοιόσδ ̓ ἔφυ. EUR. Suppl. 881. Ωγύγια δ ̓ ἐς πυλώμαθ ̓ ἱπ | πομέδων | ἄναξ. EUR. Phœn. 1113.

4th

5th

....

....

8. And the same liberty is sometimes assumed without absolute necessity, in such words as Μενέλαος, ̓Αγαμέμνων : thus we find

̓Αγάμεμνον, ὦ | Μενέλα | ε, πῶς ἂν ἀντ ̓ ἐμοῦ. καὶ παῖδα τόνδε, τὸν | ̓Αγαμέ | μνονος γόνον. ἱερὰ λαβὼν τοῦ Ζηνὸς Ἡ | ρακλέους | ἔχει.

SOPH. Philoct. 794.
EUR. Iph. Aul. 621.
SOPH. Philoct. 943.

though in all these instances the names might have been brought in regularly; Μενέλαε and ̓Αγαμέμνονος being capable of standing at the beginning of a line; and 'Hpåkλéovs being equally 'Hpakλéovs, and adapted to close a line. The

whole of the anapæst must be included in the proper name. ἐπὶ λαὸν Ἰθάκης, κἀ | πὶ Κεφαλ | λήνων στρατὸν, could not stand, because the two latter syllables alone of the anapæst are included within the proper name, the first being the last syllable of κἀπί.

9. A dactyl or tribrach must not precede an anapæst; but one tribrach may precede another, or a dactyl a tribrach: as in Ed. Tyr. 967,

κτανεῖν ἔμελ | λον πατέ | ρα τὸν ἐ [ μὸν, ὁ δὲ [ θανών.

10. The anapæst in the first place must be entirely included in the first word, and not made up out of two or more words:

are inadmissible.

ὅταν οὖν | ὁ δαίμων
πότε ταῦτ ̓ | ἔλεξας .
σὺ δὲ ταῦτ ̓ | ἔδρασας .

...

11. But if the line begin with an article immediately followed by its substantive, or preposition by its case, there is no objection. Thus in

ἐπὶ τῷ | δε δ' ἠγόρευον .

....

τὸν ἴσον | χρόνον . . . . Tòv followed immediately by loov makes a legitimate beginning, as also does ènì To.... the case immediately succeeding the preposition.

12. With a tribrach or dactyl as first foot, there is no such restriction.

ὅταν ἐν | ̓Αχαιοῖς
πότε γὰρ | ἔλεξας .
οὐ θέμις | ἀκούειν

are legitimate beginnings.

13. The first syllable either of the third or the fourth foot should be the last syllable of a word; so that the verse shall be divided into two parts, one containing two and a half feet, the other three and a half. The former cæsura, that in the middle of the third foot, is more frequent; but there should by all means be one or the other. Instances of the former or penthemimeral cæsura are

Σκύθην ἐς οἶμον—ἄβατον εἰς ἐρημίαν.
Ηφαιστε, σοὶ δὲ χρὴ μέλειν ἐπιστολάς.
ὑψηλοκρήμνοις τὸν λεωργὸν ὀχμάσαι.

as also lines 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17.

ÆSCH. Prom. 2.
Ibid. 3.

Ibid. 5.

Of the second or hepthemimeral caesura, instances are,

χθονὸς μὲν ἐς τηλουρὸν—ἥκομεν πέδον,
ἅς σοι πατὴρ ἐφεῖτοτόνδε πρὸς πέτραις.
ἀδαμαντίνων δεσμῶν ἐν—ἀῤῥήκτοις πέδαις.

#scn. Prom. 1.

Ibid. 4.

Ibid. 6.

as also lines 13, 15. So that five lines out of seventeen, or about one-third, have this hepthemimeral cæsura; and this is about the average proportion.

14. There may be an elision at the caesura, as at the penthemimeral cæsura, in

ἄραρεν ἥδε γ'ὠλένη δυσεκλύτως.
ὅτῳ τρόπῳ τῆσδ ̓ ἐκκυλισθήσῃ τέχνης.
γένωνθ', ὑφ ̓ ἅρματ’—ἤγαγον φιληνίους.

and at the hepthemimeral cæsura,

σὺν τῷ θεῷ φανούμεθ ̓ ἢ πεπτωκότες.

#scn. Prom. 60.
Ibid. 87.
Ibid. 463.

SOPH. Cd. Tyr. 146.

15. In a very small number of lines, elision after the third foot supplies the place of the cæsura: this structure has received the name quasi-cæsura. Instances occur in

and in

ἐν τοῖς ἐμοῖς γένοιτ ̓ ἐμοῦ συνειδότος.

SOPH. Cd, Tyr. 250.

πυρὸς βροτοῖς δοτῆρο—δρᾷς Προμηθέα, ÆscH. Prom. 615.

t

16. Sometimes, but very rarely, a line occurs without either cæsura or quasi-cæsura; such as,

οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως ὑμῖν ἀπιστῆσαί με χρή,
πιθοῦ· κράτος μέντοι πάρες γ ̓ ἑκὼν ἐμοί.
τὸ γὰρ τυχεῖν αὐτοῖς ἅπαντ ̓ ἐνταῦθ ̓ ἔνι.
εἰ γάρ τι μὴ θεοῖς βεβούλευται νέον.

#scn. Prom. 643.
Esch. Αg. 952.
SOPH. Ed. Τ. 598.
#scn. Suppl. 1014.

This structure is not by any means to be imitated, unless, perhaps, that the broken unmusical sound may be an echo to the sense, as in the Persæ of Æschylus, 494.

No verse is found in which the third and fourth feet compose a single word; so that the line is divided into three equal parts, each containing two feet, as it would be in

ἀναξίοις ἐξευγμένον παθήμασι.

17. When the verse closes with a cretic, the preceding syllable must be short, so that the fifth foot be an iambus, not a spondee. Thus ὑψηλοκρήμνοις τὸν λεωργὸν—ὀχμάσαι (Asch. Prom. 5); in which, if for λεωργόν we substituted λεωργούς, πε should destroy the metre, by making the syllable γους before the cretic ὀχμᾶσαι a long syllable.

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