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The Relation of the Resolved Arsis and Resolved Thesis in Plautus to the Prose Accent

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The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here The Relation of the Resolved Arsis and Resolved Thesis in Plautus to the Prose Accent Charles Exon The Classical Review / Volume 20 / Issue 01 / February 1906, pp 31 - 36 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00993569, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00993569 How to cite this article: Charles Exon (1906). The Relation of the Resolved Arsis and Resolved Thesis in Plautus to the Prose Accent. The Classical Review, 20, pp 31-36 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00993569 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.102.42.98 on 24 Jun 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 31 On a small tablet found near the Propy- the resettlement of Lesbos after the revolt; laea * in the writing of the latter part of the but the former opinion that we should fifth century we find record of an Athenian restore es 'Bpsrpiav might find favour again, diroucia h *Ep . .; the stone is broken at a if the interpretation of our new document tantalising point: the accepted restoration is which I have proposed were to be accepted. now « "Eptaov and refers the inscription to LEWIS R. FARNELL. 1 G.I.A. 1, 339. THE RELATION OF THE RESOLVED ARSIS AND RESOLVED THESIS IN PLAUTUS TO THE PROSE ACCENT. No satisfactory attempt has ever been admission of dactyls, anapaests, and proce- made to account for the existence of the leusmatics to the dialogue metres. As these strict rules observed by Plautus, and the rules serve purposes so very similar, they early Roman dramatists generally, in the use naturally overlap sometimes; but it will be of dactyls, anapaests, and proceleusmatics in convenient to consider them in the form in dialogue verse. Why, for instance, is a dac- which they are usually stated. It is demon- tylic word not a good substitute for a trochee, strable that they are all particular cases, or seeing that an anapaestic word is a perfectly at least corollaries of a single law, which good substitute for an iambus ? Or why is may be stated thus :— an anapaest divided as in hds\tibus 6m\nibus Except in the first foot of a colon, a re- forbidden, while a dactyl divided as in qude solved arsis or thesis must, in dialogue metres, uo\Us faci\am omnia is perfectly legitimate 1 begin in a syllable which would bear in prose It is true that explanations have been sug- the primary or secondary word-accent, or a gested of one or two particular rules, but sentence-accent? they are far from convincing. Thus the rule As regards the proceleusmatic, it has al- forbidding caesura in a resolved thesis in ready been shown by A. W. Ahlberg that dialogue verse is explained by Prof. Lindsay both the arsis and the thesis of that par- as due to the desire of the Roman drama- ticular foot must begin in syllables accented tists not to add to the length of the 'irra- in prose (De Proceleusmaticis, etc., Lund, tional ' thesis by ' the pause that inevitably 1900, p. 36. Cf. Ritschl, Prol. Trin. p. 289). attends upon the conclusion of a word.'* His method was the collection and classifica- But it is not the fact that a pause necessarily tion of all the proceleusmatics occurring in or usually occurs between words in a spoken the dialogue metres of Plautus and Terence. sentence, the division of sentences into words Such a method would be hardly practicable being logical, not phonetic. Further, caesura for the resolved arses and theses generally; is just as strictly forbidden in the resolved but I hope, by a different method, to show arsis of the same feet, which arsis is not that every resolved arsis or resolved thesis ' irrational.' It is therefore hard to see why found in Plautus is constructed in obedience such an explanation is offered. All these to the same law. The one seeming excep- rules have for their object the determining tion— the case in which a resolved arsis of the conditions under which certain feet seems to begin in a short final syllable— may be admitted to trochaic and iambic will be separately discussed below. It should verse, and these feet resemble one another be observed that, like the proposed law, the in having ' irrational' theses, and resolution particular rules which are deducible from it of the arsis or of the thesis or of both. as corollaries do not apply to the first foot What is needed therefore is a comprehensive of a colon.3 Also the few iambic and trochaic explanation. The true reason for the ex- lines occurring in the Cantica should not be istence of any one of these rules will prob- ably be the reason for the existence of all 2 It need hardly be said that this law did not at first occur to the writer in the form in which it is the rest. To show that such a comprehensive here presented. It emerged in the course of a explanation is possible is the purpose of the minute analysis of many hundreds of lines, under- present paper. taken with a view to discovering the exact means by which the dramatists avoided metrical ambi- Writers on Plautine metric usually recog- guity. It is here demonstrated in what seems to nize some five or six rules regulating the be the briefest possible form. 3 See O. Seyffert in Berl. Phil. Woch. 1891, 1 Introduction to Captiui, 1900, p. 68. p. 926. 32 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. included in the dialogue metres. I take the a\micus — or falling — cdrus a\micus: in rules seriatim. either case the law would be broken.* 1. A dactylic or tribrach word or word- 6. A long syllable accented in prose may ending cannot receive the ictus on the middle not be shortened in dialogue verse under the syllable.1 law of Breues Breuiantes. This follows directly from the general law. In order that such a syllable might be For the tribrach word this rule is not relaxed shortened, it would be necessary that it for the first foot or for anapaestic metre. should be preceded by a short syllable, and 2. A dactylic word or word-ending can- that an ictus metricus (cancelling the word not be a substitute for a trochee or an accent) should fall either on the preceding iambus. short syllable, mdUstus, or on the following As a substitute for a trochee, a dactylic syllable, mdlgst&s. In the first case a re- word would contain a resolved thesis whose solved arsis, in the second case a resolved first syllable would not be accented in prose. thesis would offend against the proposed law. As a substitute for an iambus, it would re- This rule, like the others, is suspended in ceive the ictus on the middle syllable, which the first foot of a colon and in anapaestic is forbidden by the first corollary, and there- metre, as has been proved by the careful fore by the general law. It is significant studies of A. W. Ahlberg.5 that a word that becomes dactylic by elision As has been already remarked, there is is admissible as a substitute for either a one case of resolution of the arsis which trochee or an iambus (eriper(e) dculos, or seems to contradict the proposed law, the eriper(e) omn6s).2 Such a word so placed case in which the resolved arsis (not thesis) obviously fulfils the requirements of the seems to begin in a short final syllable. If law. this case be reserved for the present, the 3. The first two syllables of an anapaest above demonstration proves the law not for may not be the ending of a polysyllable. every instance of resolved arsis or thesis in Two such syllables must constitute either Plautus, but for every instance falling within a resolved arsis or a resolved thesis—pec\t6ra the scope of these six generally recognized mul\c6nt, or pic\tora mul\cent—the law being rules—that is to say, for the overwhelming broken in either case. majority of instances. We are quite justi- 4. The first syllable of an anapaest may fied therefore in entertaining the presumption not be the last syllable of a word of more that the law is general, and in seeking to than one syllable.3 prove that it is so. To be more precise, these A syllable so placed would be the first of six rules prove that the law is observed a resolved arsis or of a resolved thesis— whenever the resolved arsis or thesis begins mag\nd nolup\tas, or mdg\na uoMp\tas. The in one of the last three syllables of a word law is obviously broken in either case. of more than one syllable. There are three 5. The first two syllables of a dactyl may cases in which they fail to prove that the not form one word, or the ending of a law is observed: word. 1. When the resolved arsis or thesis begins A dactyl so formed must be rising—carus in that part of a polysyllable that precedes the chief accent—cdlamitdtem, sapiintia; 1 As these rules are generally recognized, it is 2. when it begins in the first syllable of a not, perhaps, necessary to refer to places where word, or word-ending, of the measure of they may be verified. The rules are given in Prof.
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