Part I.—BreuioGRAPHICAL. 
The suggestion which paved the way for the discovery of the 
Cursus Law in Byzantine Greek prose was made by P. Edmond 
Bouvy, Poétes et Mélodes. Etudes sur les origines du rhythme 
tonique dans Vhymnographie de l'Eglise Grecque; Nimes 1886. 
Bouvy, while searching in the dark for a law which would account 
for the characteristic rhythm of the Greek prose of the Byzantine 
period, noticed the common occurrence of an accentual dactyl at 
the close of sentence members; that is, such words as «ydowzos, 
ehehvzeocy Often stand in this position. This seemed to him to be 
the essential characteristic of the language in question, and he 
suggested that a final accentual dactyl should be considered the 
fundamental element in the clausule of the rhythmical prose of 
writers from the fourth century on. He noticed further the striking 
circumstance that in a large number of cases the final accentual 
dactyl is preceded by another accentual dactyl, making altogether 
an accentual dactylic dipody. 
Wilhelm Meyer saw that the suggested law of the final accentual 
dactyl offered no satisfactory solution, simply because not a single 
writer could be found whose language followed such a law with 
any regularity. But the incidental observation made by Bouvy that 
the final accentual dactyl was often preceded by another suggested 
to Meyer that the first dactyl, and not the final one was the essen- 
tial factor. It was soon apparent that he had the key to the 
situation, and starting from this, he discovered the law which has 
since borne his name. 
Meyer’s statement of his discovery appeared in 1891: Der ac- 
centuierte Satzschlusz in der byzantinischen Prosa vom 4. bis 16. 
Jahrhundert. The law is formulated in the following terms: Die 
Silben, welche einer Sinnespause unmittelbar vorangehen, sollen 
einen bestimmten Tonfall haben; hiebei soll aber nicht die Lange 
oder Kiirze der Silben, sondern nur der Wortaccent beriicksichtigt 
werden; und zwar sollen vor der letzten Hebung der Art mindestens 
2 Senkungen stehen, wie ézcvtay cv dodawy ; nach der letzten Hebung 
kann stehen was will; also: dreséyovrae cv dowmnor. unavtoy avioonay. 
a : ; : 
GMCS OO oC. OOpLay Thu. 
It is noted that different writers seem to follow different prin- 
ciples in treatment of clausule before weak punctuation, some 
