149 



TERENTIAN METRES. 



TERENTIAN METRES. 



IfO 



Greek language has a word of precisely the same power and character 

 yt , which we strongly suspect to be the very same word ; so that, il 

 our suspicions be right, equidem and fywyc are of one origin, as well as 

 of one meaning. Lastly, there are reasons still remaining which 

 demand a monosyllabic pronunciation for quidem. We have already 

 called it an enclitic, and it appears beyond dispute in that character in 

 the words equidem, siquidem, quandoguidem. Now an enclitic should 

 in its nature sacrifice itself to give tone to the word which precedes it. 

 Yet if we believe the ordinary teachers of Latin prosody, equidem, 

 though a corruption from tgoquidem, or egquidem, has the first syllable 

 short. Again, quando by itself has the final o common, to take the 

 most unfavourable view ; for in the poets of the Augustan age it would 

 be difficult to find a single example where o is short; and in qucmdoqw, 

 qandoattiqe, the vowel is always long. But add quidem, and they 

 say quandoquidem has the same vowel always short. So also ti tn 

 siquidem, according to their views, loses its length the moment the 

 enclitic attaches itself to it. If our views be right, the true pronun- 

 ciation of these three words may be represented by something like eke, 

 quandake, sike ; the last corresponding to the Greek 7. We will 

 here observe, in passing, that our pronunciation of quidem suggests a 

 correction of a corrupt passage in Pereius, Sat. i. 10 : 



"Littera. Per me quidem tint omnla protinus alba." 



The current reading is equidem ; and, relying upon one error, the 

 editors have allowed the same equidem to stand with dubites in Sat. v. 

 45, when the context, as well as grammar, requires duliitem. It may 

 also be noticed that Hitachi, in his ' Parergon,' says that the employ- 

 ment of quidem as a monosyllable is a very ordinary occurrence. 



But to return to the subject before us. It is not uncommon with 

 critics to imagine to themselves that the laws of Greek and Latin verse 

 are based upon principles essentially different from those of modern 

 languages ; the former depending, they say, upon the length of sylla- 

 bles, the latter upon accent. This distinction we believe to be wholly 

 without foundation. We rely little upon the fact that Prisdan's 

 treatise headed ' De Accentibus ' is only a schoolboy-like scanning of 

 the first lines in the ' JEneid,' because, as has been already said, that 

 writer's authority is not of great weight in what concerns the spoken 

 tongue ; and in fact, for the same reason, there is little dependence to 

 be placed upon the dogmas of the other so-called grammarians, such as 

 des. Our views upon this subject are rather derived from the 

 perusal of Terence and Plautus themselves, and are confirmed to a con- 

 siderable extent by the hexameters of Virgil and the lyrics of Horace. 

 They also seem to be supported by the general principles of language. 

 We will endeavour briefly to state the results at which we think we 

 have fairly arrived. 



I. In word* of more than two syllables, if, according to the received 

 prosodies, two or more short syllables, exclusive of the final syllable, 

 together, the second of those short syllables, counting from the 

 beginning of the word, was slurred over. For instance, in some cases 

 the i longing a vowel i or e into the sound of a y, or of a vowel a, o, or 

 H into the sound of a tr, would be the simplest mode of effecting such 

 a result. Thus, ailirll.ulrf, periimut, coxtiliitta, would, upon our 

 theory, be pronounced adtribicere, peryimut, contilyum, the last of which 

 is confirmed by Horace's use of the same word in his odes, and the 

 Italian mnsiyli'j, Fr. coiueil, Sp. contejo ; and at any rate our pronun- 

 ciation of the two former is more consistent with the quantity of the 

 vowels than the mode usually adopted, namely, pn--l nuns, aJtribHere. 

 Bentley has himself observed ('Eun.,' ii. 2, 36) that the words mulier, 

 mulierit, &c., are always so placed in Terence as to have the accent on 

 the first syllable ; which, by the way, is consistent with the Italian 

 , and the Spanish muger. We doubt, however, whether the 

 dative and ablative plural would be found to obey the law laid down 

 by Bentley. In those cases where the second short vowel is followed 

 by a consonant, the abbreviation proposed becomes impracticable, if at 

 least that consonant be really to be sounded. In such cases the right 

 course is probably to drop the syllable altogether. Thus mueria, 

 familia, and such words, Hermann (' De Re Metrica ') truly says, are 

 to be pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, and this in 

 defiance of the law laid down by all the grammarians, that the accent 

 cannot be carried farther from the end of a word than the antepenult. 

 Hermann has not attempted to reconcile the two assertions, but they 

 fall at once into agreement if we are right in dropping the second syl- 

 lable, for then the first becomes virtually an antepenultimate ; and we 

 are only doing what is common in our own language, as in (very, 

 lively. This principle, moreover, may be clearly traced in forms 

 acknowledged to be Latin. Thus, from populu* should be formed 

 populicttf, but that becomes pnfilicut or publicut. If petto has a perfect 

 pepuli, cado a perfect cecidi ; the compounds with re should strictly 

 give us repeptdi, rececidi ; but we find reppuli, reccidi. Again, in con- 

 nection with ujiifex we ought to have opijicium and opijicina ; but 

 these hve been supplanted by officium, officina. So, too, the Greek 

 traitor becomes in Latin oppidum, as opposed to the arx, or citadel ; 

 and the adverb nonfat takes the form of oppido, an equivalent in 

 meaning to plane. 



II. The accent of a Latin dissyllable or polysyllable will fall upon 

 the penult, if long. Where that penult is long by the nature of the 

 vowel, and at the same time the final syllable is short, the accent upon 

 the penult is called a circumflex; in other cases an acute accent. 



Secondly, if the penult be short, put an acute accent upon the ante- 

 penult, always performing the previously mentioned abbreviation, if 

 need be ; the necessary effect of which is to give a long antepenult, if 

 the penult itself be short. 



III. The preceding rules dispose of every case except two classes of 

 words, namely, dissyllables with a short penult, and monosyllables. 

 The former are either to be pronounced as monosyllables, or else to be 

 attached to the preceding or following word ; and the double word 

 thus formed to be accentuated as a polysyllable. When a word is 

 attached in pronunciation to that which it precedes, it has already 

 received in common use the name of enclitic. Hermann, who first 

 observed that there are also words which attach themselves to those 

 which follow, has proposed to give them the name of proclitics. The 

 Greek article, for instance, belongs to this class, as also not unfrequently 

 the Latin hie, hue, &c. The same is true of prepositions, when really 

 prepositions, that is, when they precede their noun ; and the Latin n<m 

 or ne, like the Greek ov, should perhaps in many cases be pronounced 

 in immediate connection with the following verb, just as we, who are 

 accustomed to place our not after a verb, write cannot as a single word. 

 Many little conjunctions also may probably require such treatment, as 

 ti, <, &c. j in confirmation of which it should be observed that Latin 

 manuscripts, even of a late date, almost habitually write these little 

 words in immediate connection with the following word. Agaiu, the 

 list of enclitics should be extended so as to include most of the con- 

 junctions which require to be placed second in a sentence, and even 

 conjunctions in general, together with the relative itself when they are 

 forced, if the word may be used, into a second place, as, for instance, 

 in the first line of the ' ./Kneid,' which acquires additional power by 

 the pronunciation TroinS-qui. In the same way a postponed preposi- 

 tion becomes an enclitic, as in the phrase altls-de montibus. In this 

 way many dissyllables and monosyllables will coalesce into polysyllables, 

 and be accentuated accordingly. We even entertain a strong suspicion 

 that a verb in the middle of a sentence must often be treated as an 

 enclitic, to give tone to some important word before it. Such a pro- 

 nunciation was indeed demanded by Carey, in his ' Prosody," for the 

 Virgilian ler'a-rolat. The verb ett, again, is known to have been very 

 generally an enclitic ; and the best Sanskritists have held that the verb 

 must very frequently in verse be so attached to the word which pre- 

 cedes it. We trace the same law in a fact which governs the order of 

 words in the Latin and Hungarian, and probably many other languages, 

 namely, that when a verb occupies a place in the middle of its clause, 

 it is safe to infer a strong emphasis for the word which precedes it. 



IV. The principle of elision will often modify the accent of a word. 

 Thus, cumprimum, ioribindum, argumfnto, would in ordinary circum- 

 stances have the accent as marked. But if elision take place, they 

 sometimes have the accent displaced. In this way the first and 

 eleventh lines of the Prologue to the ' Andria ' should be read : " Poe"ta 

 cum-prim, am' adscribend' aelpulit ; " and " Non it' dissim'li sunt 

 argument' et-tamen." It should also be observed that elision often 

 destroyi) the initial vowel of the second word, instead of the final 

 syllable of the preceding word, as mine tuCimst ojftciuia, rather than 

 nunt tii (it offlcium. 



V. The pronunciation of Latin words in the days of Plautus and 

 Terence differed in several respects from that which holds good fur the 

 later poets, and this for the most part in one direction syllables being 

 long in the old Latin drama, wlu'ch afterwards became short. Thus, 

 larua and miluug, gradls and nun clam, were always trisyllabic. The 

 first syllable of Acheruni was already in a state of transition, generally 

 long, yet at times short ; eacu/a is another word of varying quantity 

 in the same syllable. Then, again, nominatives in or, as u,rur (Plaut., 

 'Stic.,' v. 140), itultior (Ibid., 'Bacc.,' v. 123), may have the last 

 syllable long, and this with the more reason as they really stand for 

 uzort, ttultiort. In the same way, pater, like the Greek TOTJJP, has a 

 long final syllable in tho ' Trin.,' v. 645, if we follow the Ambrosial! 

 palimpsest. Then, again, in verbs we have a long final in the first 

 person of the reflective, as perpetior (' Most.,' v. 621), and in the third 

 person singular of the active, provided the other parts-of the ten 

 question prove the vowel to be in itself long, as eit (' Mil.,' v. 242), 

 adjictat ('Merc.,' v. 648), habit, notaul habet ('Trin.,' v. 206). deslderit, 

 trpectet, for so the MSS. (' Mil.,' 244), and, above all, in perfect tenses, 

 as optiyit ('Stic.,' v. 384), astitit ('Mil.,' v. 213), reppcrit ('Stic.,' v. 

 462), vendidit (Capt. Prol. 9). Indeed, Virgil and the later poets-furnish 

 not a few examples where such syllables retained their original length, 

 as, pater, amor, in Virg., perruplt, tubiit, HOT., rcdiit, pratcriil, Ov. On 

 ;he other band, a short vowel in what is called doubtful position, 

 remained invariably short in 1'lautus and Terence, although the 

 ater poets took the liberty of treating such a syllable as long. Thus, 

 acruma, sacrum, lucrum, patrem, have always a short first Hyllable in 

 Latin comedy ; and if mtdiocrit has a long 6, it is because the o vowel 



of this word is in itself long. 



If now the principles we have assumed on the grounds above men- 

 tioned be applied to the plays of Terence, we arrive at the result, that 

 be verses, with very few exceptions, acquire the desired rhythm ; and 

 hat there should be exceptions must be expected where the text of an 

 author is not yet established upon a careful comparison of manuscripts, 

 mil \vliere even the transposition of two words will often alter the 

 accent. Moreover, it should always be recollected that in tho comic 

 drama it may be even desirable to avoid the purer rhythm of verse, 



