The Latin books would style the foot Paeon Primus, and
both Greek and Latin would swear that it was compoded of a trochee and
what they term a pyrrhic- that is to say, a foot of two short
syllables- a thing that cannot be, as I shall presently show large
But now, there is an obvious difficulty. The astrologos, according
to the Prosodies' own showing, is equal to five short syllables, and
the trochee to three- yet, in the line quoted, these two feet are
equal. They occupy, precisely, the same time. In fact, the whole music
of the line depends upon their being made to occupy the same time. The
Prosodies then, have demonstrated what all mathematicians have
stupidly failed in demonstrating- that three and five are one and
the same thing. After what I have already said, however, about the
bastard trochee and the bastard iambus, no one can have any trouble in
understanding that many are the is of similar character. It is
merely a bolder variation than usual from the routine of trochees, and
introduces to the bastard trochee one additional syllable. But this
syllable is not short. That is, it is not short in the sense of
"short" as applied to the final syllable of the ordinary trochee,
where the word means merely the half of long.
In this case (that of the additional syllable) "short," if used at
all, must be used in the sense of the sixth of long.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290