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Three Topics In Greek Metre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
Bedford College, London
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Extract

Catalexis was the subject of an important recent article by L. P. E. Parker. There is one particular aspect of it that she does not touch, and that ought not to be left out of account: its presumable Indo-European origins. Consideration of this aspect leads to the drawing of distinctions which otherwise tend to escape notice.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , December 1982 , pp. 281 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

1 CQ n.s. 26 (1976), 14–28.

2 I use the term ‘position’, which ought to be self-explanatory, for what Maas and others after him call ‘element’. ‘Elements’ suggests στοιχεîα, components of language or of particular verses.

3 ‘Almost’, because there are a handful of difficult cases.

4 Glotta 51 (1973), 161–187.

5 See Glotta I.c., 165–70, and CQ n.s. 23 (1973), 184 f.

6 A. Dain and D. S. Raven have followed this course.

7 See Dale, A. M., Wien. Stud. 77 (1964), 15–36Google Scholar = Collected Papers (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 185–209; Parker 18 f. At Ibycus 282 (= S151). 24–5 the emendation of mine that Page cites in his apparatus in Supplementum Lyricis Graecis was presented in Philologus 110 (1966), 152 f. I discuss Archil. 190 in my Studies in Greek Elegy and lambus, p. 135. Miss Parker seems to be suggesting that the dactylic tetrameter and the ithyphallic which make up that fragment might really have been separate verses, since the Cologne fragment has shown that another of Archilochus’ so-called asynarteta, D|2ia, was in fact D‖2ia. But that has no bearing on the viability of 4da as an independent verse.Google Scholar

8 See ZPE 26 (1977), 39.

9 There is occasionally hiatus after it (Ar. Pax 116, S. Ph. 1205, E. Or. 1303, Phaeth. 111 (before exclamation ***), cf. Supp. 277 (hexameter), Or. 1302 , but like the hiatus sometimes found at the bucolic caesura in Homer, it cannot be interpreted as closing a period. Cf. E. Fraenkel, Kt. Beitr. i. 190; D. Korzeniewski, Gr. Metrik, p. 74. Hephaestion says that Alcman composed entire strophes in acatalectic tetrameters, but the fragment he quotes (27) is presumably only part of a strophe (despite Syrianus, Comm. in Hermog. i. 61 R.); I assume with Wilamowitz (quoted by Fraenkel 189) that it must have ended

10 Parker 19 regards the final position in as a biceps with compulsory contraction. This does not seem to me meaningful. If double short is precluded, it is not a biceps. Besides, contraction (- for must be a secondary phenomenon, whereas - - as a close must be original. Anyway it may be more correct to write the pendant close as - x than as - -. This point will be discussed presently.

11 Occasionally, and especially in emotionally charged contexts, we do find with hiatus or brevis in longo (but not a short open vowel): Alc. 78, Med. 1396, Ant. 932, 936, Nub. 892, Av. 212, O.C. 139, 143, 170, 188, 1757.

12 Sim. 541. 13?, Pind. Ol. 2 str. 1, ep. 2, 5?, Bacchyl. 17 ep. 7?; S. Ant. 364 ~ 374; E. Supp. 368 ~ 372, 376 ~ 380, Or. 966 f. ~ 977 f.

13 Vesp. 407 ⋯ντ⋯τατ ⋯ξ⋯ (with irregular double short and unelidable vowel in hiatus); 1064 f. (but the lekythion is unlikely to be a separate period; MacDowell takes δ⋯ to be in correption, which would be highly abnormal); Eccl. 899 (where may be an addition; cf. Wilamowitz, Gr. Verskunst, p. 476).

14 On hypercatalexis in Greek see Parker 16. She points out that it functions in the same way as catalexis in that it produces a contrast between blunt and pendant clausulae.

15 Cratinus 222, PMG 967, al.; Glaucus of Rhegium ap. ps.-Plut. De Musica 1134de; Ephorus 70F 149 §16.

16 Unless Lesb. inc. 23 represents the end of a catalectic followed by an anaclastic ionic.

17 And perhaps E. Cycl. 661 (τ⋯ρνευ’ ἕλκε μ⋯) σ’ ⋯ξοδυνη⋯ς.Among iambics: Andr. 467 .

18 See above, pp. 281 f. For simplicity I here omit the hypercatalectic type in which there are two longs with a short between.

19 The contraction of such a double short into a long (biceps) is generally agreed to be a secondary development. It often results in long syllables in the principes having no short syllables next to them. We may still say that there are two short positions.

20 Attested in the Lesbians only in the form , but perhaps in principle

21 Not attested in the Lesbians.

22 Not all cola ending are pendant in this sense: in bacchiacs and ionics both long positions behave as principes. In tragic ionics either is resolvable (in synapheia), and in bacchiacs at least the second (the first being presumably a triseme).

23 A collection of passages is quoted by L. E. Rossi, Riv.Fil. 91 (1963), 61–3. Add Arist. Quint, p. 44. 7W.-I.

24 See Aphthonius and Choeroboscus 11. cc.

25 Gr. Metrik, 2nd ed. (1929), p. 35; Greek Metre (1961), pp. 29, 33.

26 Art. cit. 63. He approves Maas's suggestion of a special symbol to denote the final element, noting that in music this indicates the prolongation of a final note ad libitum (art. cit. 71).

27 Collected Papers, p. 188, cf. Gnomon 28 (1956), 193, Lyric Metres of Greek Drama, 2nd ed., p. 26. Miss Parker in CQ n.s. 26 (1976), 27 criticizes Miss Dale for inconsistency, on the ground that she uses the criterion of internal responsion for the first group but not for the second, there being no internal responsion pointing to final anceps. This seems unfair. Miss Dale is surely entitled to regard the final as anceps in the absence of internal responsion or other factors calling for it to be long.

28 Only a syllable ending in a short open vowel should be counted as short. Mr W. S. Barrett has recently discovered that Pindar shows a marked aversion to such syllables in all final positions: in the Epinicians their frequency is one in 20 where the period ends , one in 120 with other rhythms, whereas in Homer and the Lesbian poets they occur once every four or five verses. I have been unable to find any definite example of a final short in ionics ending ; at Ar. Vesp. 314 ἄγαλμα may be elided into ⋯⋯, which is usually printed extra metrum but has no counterpart in the strophe. I suspect that ⋯⋯ in dramatic texts represents sobbing.

29 cf. Pyth. 1 str. 2–3 - D- -‖- - E ‖; Sim. 581. 4 D|- -‖; from earlier poetry Alcm. 89.θ***ρ⋯ς 174; Hippon. 177; Stes. 192. 2; Ibyc. 287. 4. In each case the substitution of an iambic metron for the period-ending - -‖ would give a commonplace rhythm. The unit occurs in dactylo-epitrite only at Nem. 8 ep. 4, in a poem whose metre shows a number of uncommon features.

30 In P.V. 576/595 actually occurs in responsion with (Page emends.)

31 Also ‘Terpander’ PMG 697, E. Alc. 464 f. ~474f., El. 456 ~ 468, 459 ~ 471, I.T. 395 ~ 410?, Phoen. 1581, Or. 1101, I.A. 1332, Ar. Nub. 289 f. ~ 312 f., Tim. Pers. 130 f., 139 f.

32 Vesp. 1062–4 ~ 1093–5, Pax 350–1 ~ 389–90 ~ 588–9, Lys. 785–9 ~ 809–12, 1192 (1046, 1061) ~ 1206. In these places they are actually in responsion. In others he passes easily from one pattern to the other: Ach. 971–87, Eq. 617 ff., al.

33 (i) Vesp. 339 ff. ~ 370 ff., Av. 333 ff. ~ 349 ff. (ii) Vesp. 342 ~ 374.(iii) Vesp. 273–6 ~ 281–4.

34 Bacchyl. fr. 4. 70, P.V. 535 ~ 543, Andr. 1035 ~ 1045. In each case it is near the end of the strophe.

35 Pers. 985 ~ 1000, Tro. 136, I.T. 213, 220, Ion 889, 900; cf. I.T. 130 . The words are mostly proparoxytone, but this may be fortuitous.

36 CQ n.s. 1 (1951), 121 = Collected Papers, p. 84; cf. Lyric Metres, pp. 64–66, 89–91; K. J. Dover on Clouds 1312, ‘ “syllable-counting” without regard for quantity’.

37 Though irregular in Greek terms, this pattern of contrast has an analogy in the standard Lydian rhyming dodecasyllable, which seems to approximate to the scheme , though we are ignorant about many details of prosody and the part played by stress. See Kadmos 11 (1972), 165–75 and 13 (1975), 133–6.

38 P. Lille 76, best studied with P. J. Parsons, ZPE 26 (1977), 7–36.

39 Append. Dionys. p. 330. 11 Consbruch, ps.-Heph. p. 352. 21;[Sergius] iv. 523. 14 K., Aphthon. vi. 65. 31, 114. 18, cf. 240. 8; Frag. Bobiense, vi. 623. 15.

40 Gr. Singverse (1924), p. 8; Nomenclator Metricus (1929), p. 20; similarly K. Rupprecht, Einführung in die gr. Metrik, 3rd ed. (1950), pp. 13 f.

41 There are a few cases in Homer where it is not, and I assume that in earlier times unequalized verses, especially of the form , were more freely admitted. See CQ n.s. 23 (1973), 188; II. 4. 202 may be added to the examples, but 4. 517 and 9. 506 should be subtracted from them.

42 Occasionally the division is postponed by one short syllable. This is perhaps analogous to the alternation of in the hexameter; it cannot be compared with the postponement represented by the hephthemimeral caesura.

43 Both in fact discovered by Porson, as pointed out by G. Torresin in Riv. Fil. 94 (1966), 184.

44 Glotta 51 (1973), 163.

45 Nagy, G., Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter (Cambridge, Mass. 1974), pp. 280 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I was perhaps too sceptical in my review (Phoenix 28 (1974), 458).Google Scholar

46 cf. J. Irigoin, L'Ant. Cl. 25 (1956), 5–19.

47 The penthemimeral caesura, however, is never anticipated in this way; in other words there is no verse in which the only caesura to be found is one at the end of the first metron with elision.

48 S. Aj. 1101, Ph. 22; E. Hcld. 529, perhaps Ion 1 (though see Page, P.C.P.S. 1961, 81).

49 There are limits to the licence. Homer never has caesura after a monosyllabic preposition, . The tragedians do not have it after a single monosyllabic prepositive (though they do after a pair, e.g. , except in P. V. 589 In this instance it is possible that there is felt to be a quasi-caesura between the elements of the compound,οἰστρο|δινήτου. Such a licence would also account for the one trimeter with apparently no caesura at all in the second metron, Pers. 501 Cf. the famous division of Aristogeiton's name between hexameter and pentameter in ‘Sim.’ epigr. 1 Page and the later imitations of it.

A. M. Devine and L. Stephens, C. Ph. 73 (1978), 314–28, account for the inconsistency with which appositives are treated as a reflection of ‘phonostylistic’ differences, that is, of tempo variations associated with different stylistic levels. See also W. S. Allen, Accent and Rhythm, pp. 25 f.