GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 141 



the almost utter absence of pregnant rhyming phrases such as sing- 

 song, pell-mell, last not least, haste and waste, songe mensonge, 

 lug und trug, traume schaume. We find TraO^ara fiaO^ara and a 

 few other phrases. At best Greek could rhyme with two con- 

 sonants only in combinations of sigma; for example with ^ in oty, ^cty, 

 or with f. 



Clashing of consonants, which marked the austere style, was 

 gradually avoided in literature; while the dialect inscriptions show- 

 ing phonetic spelling record an attention to euphony which is sur- 

 prising to the student of the literature. Apart from Elean and Late 

 Spartan with their rhotacism the dialects display no fondness for 

 the litter a canina that is so common in Latin. Nu is a favorite con- 

 sonant, yet the Greek equivalents of septem and densus avoid the 

 dental nasal. Sonant r is avoided as is also sonant I. The sound of s 

 had its detractors, such as Lasus; but his asigmatic ode was a mere 

 tour de force. The Marathonian oath in the Oration on the Crown 

 shows 50 sigmas in 67 words, and sigma is the commonest con- 

 sonant. The sound of iota (lo-xarov Se iravrwv TO t says Dionysius of 

 Halicarnassus) was much more frequent in Latin than in Greek; and 

 Hermogenes, who remarks that the diphthongs lend solemnity, 1 adds 

 that this is not the case with (that is I) and t. 



To get an approximate idea of the relative frequency of the 

 sounds of the language I have taken about 1000 consecutive sounds 

 from 38 verses of the Prometheus (631-667), and from a part of Thuc. 

 2, 4. These sounds are distributed as follows (TJ is placed under 17, 

 <j> under w; a includes a and d). 



Aesch. Thuc. Aesch. Thuc. Aesch. Thuc. 



1 ff 129 



2 a 77 



3 v 73 



4 70 



5 o 66 



99 11 \ 37 38 21 y 19 14 



89 12 33 i 33 22 ei 19 13 



87 13 5 31 n 32 23 x 17 x H 



82 14 i 31 a. 30 24 <J> 10 an 8 



72 15 B 28 p 30 25 = 6 8 



6 T 62 a 71 16 v 26 ov 24 26 I 6 8 



7 p 52 A 65 17 ai 25 8 22 27 $ 5 f 5 



8 it 48 ir 40 18 K 24 <u 22 28 au 3 ev 2 



9 -n 42 i 39 19 ov 24 t; 19 29 3 ^ 2 

 10 M 39 K 38 20 o 21 7 16 30 t|/ 1 C 



Aeschylus: vowel sounds, 443, consonants, 584. Thucydides: 

 vowel sounds, 461, consonants, 558. The order of frequency of the 

 vowels is e (c and rf), o (o and o>), a, t, v; of the consonants, the 

 dentals greatly exceed either the palatals or the labials; the mutes 

 are thrice as numerous as the mediae or the aspiratae. Further 

 investigation is of course necessary to arrive at greater certainty. 

 A rough tabulation of the frequency of initial letters by the pages 



1 The sound of had a certain solemnity (Plato, Phcedrus, 244 D). 



