13. In cases where the augment falls as in (
Greek characters) or (Greek characters), or where, as in (Greek characters) and (Greek characters), the short vowel closes the first part of a composite word, the prolongation of that syllable in Euripides, though not altogether avoided, is yet exceedingly rare. (R. P. ad Orest. 64).
14. One great cause of the many mistakes about syllabic quantity should seem to be involved in that false position of S. Clarke's (ad Il. B. 537), that a short vowel preceding any two consonants with which a syllable can be commenced may form a short syllable. Nothing was ever more unluckily asserted, or more pregnant with confusion and error.
15. To the perspicacity and acuteness of Dawes (M. C. pp. 90, 1, 196, 146, 7) we are indebted for the first clear statement of the principal points in this department of prosody : to the deliberate and masterly judgment of Porson (ad Orest. 64, and elsewhere) we owe whatever else is correctly and certainly known. 16. Some little things, however, may serve to show that an English ear, especially on a sudden appeal, is no very competent judge of Attic correptions, so called.
For instance, in the following lines :
Phœn. 1444. (Greek characters)
Alc. 434. (Greek characters)
it is not from any practice of our own, certainly, that we should pronounce the words (Greek characters) and (Greek characters)with precision and facility in that very way.
17. So, too, if (Greek characters) and (Greek characters) were on a sudden proposed as to the shortening of the first syllable in each, it might seem to an English ear just as improbable in the noun as in the verb; although in Athenian utterance we know very well the fact was quite otherwise.
Toup (vid. Emendd. Vol. i. 114, 5; iv. 441) maintained in his day (what is now called) the permissiveness of (Greek characters) and actually, on that
ground, suggested the following as an emendatien of a passage in Sophocles, for (Greek characters) or(Greek characters):
Elect. 21, 2 (Greek characters),
(where (Greek characters), of course, is right enough, being pronounced (Greek characters)). Since Person's delicate correction of that error (u. s. p. 441) no argument has been advanced in its defence. And yet, {{subst:a` priori why should not (Greek characters) be
permissive, as well as Op., for instance?" The consonants (Greek characters) can begin a word ; why not commence a separate syllable ? How can (Greek characters) commence a syllable, when notoriously it cannot begin a word?"
