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 Fourth Foot of the Homeric Hexameter A. Shewan The Classical Review / Volume 29 / Issue 06 / September 1915, pp 165 - 169 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00048769, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00048769 How to cite this article: A. Shewan (1915). The Fourth Foot of the Homeric Hexameter. The Classical Review, 29, pp 165-169 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00048769 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.228 on 24 May 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 165 leaving its mark in the barbarous rhythm pably sound reading of the passage: of the recast line 4. Ovftm of B is a simplification, the more so as the MSS. have corrupted dpdv in XIX. 40: the same sentence into an accusative) rbv B' alyfr' 'Ep/ieia? ipiovvio<; et? might suggest dv/wp wovaa here—cor- 8fi ruption being due to the influence of the Setjd/ievos . stereotyped phrase (e.g. Aphr. 102). But a K€ s it must be admitted that the construc- Et? x*P 0y i certainly a strange tion, though it may stand in lyric, is expression, as Messrs- Sikes and Allen harsh for epic writing. remark, for 'took the child into his arms'—stranger still, as we are told XXXI. 13: that he had already ' received' it—and 0 can hardly be sound. Kochly's wild KOXOV 8e irepl XP ^ Xd/nrerai e<rdo<! shot etke makes the tautology worse than Xeirrovpyes irvoifj dvkyuov. before. Perhaps ek x^P adpvae I &£«- It is possible to construe these lines fievo<:: an error of wrong division in the by taking irvotfj dve/uov as dependent in first instance, and weak tinkering after- sense on Xdfi-jreTai,' Shines in the wind,' wards. but the expression savours more of Vergil than of the style of this hymn. XXIV. 4: Xe-rrrovpyh and irvoijj suggest the toss- epXe° TOV$' ava OIKOV, Bvfwv ing of a charioteer's robe in the wind; e%pvaa. can the original have run : The solemn intensive repetition of the vepl XP0^ d/iirera e<rdo<{ verb fits the tone of this invocation very XeirTovpyes irvoii] dve/icov well, but what are we to make of Ov/tov e%oviral The adjective in this phrase (hiatus before Bucolic diaeresis)—'and regularly precedes, and emendations of around his form the wind tosses his fine- e spun drapery'? verdio lacks early iirepxeo do not convince; ev epx ° would authority, but that need not be fatal in infallibly have appeared as ivepxeo if this late and possibly Alexandrian hymn. corrupted. BV/MI Xaxpvaa has also been suggested, but we look for an appeal to The blunder was likely in a context as the goddess to be gracious (cp. xxix. 10), full of Xa/iTT/oo? (10, 12), etc., as this. and Pindar's formula of prayer, 0v/wv R. J. SHACKLE. 8eXu>v (Istkm. v. 43, to accept D's pal- Trinity College, Cambridge. THE FOURTH FOOT OF THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER. FOR the caesura after the fourth this caesura be considered a rule for trochee, and breaches, in a Westminster Homer, the ' father of the rest,' and Version and in the Ode to Professor the model that composers generally Ridgeway, of the rule forbidding it, emulate ? In other words, are fourth Mr. Gaselee {supra, p. 48) might have trochees many or few in the Iliad and referred to the notes by Professor Odyssey? Professor Tyrrell (I.e.) went Tyrrell and Dr. Hayman in C.R. XVII. so far as to say that he did not believe 365 and XVIII. 226. Such a caesura not that from the two poems two sound infrequently appears in Greek hexa- verses could be adduced with such a meter and elegiac compositions. In a caesura, except when the verse ends recent epigram1 one hexameter ends, with a polysyllable, and that the Troripov Se TO S&pov apeiov, and to only one in which such a caesura some that is a clear case. may not be avoided by a very simple How far can the veto on verses with correction seemed to be Od. xii. 47, iwl 8" ovar' dXeiyfrai eraipcov. And even 1 ' In Memoriam W. G. C. G.' (The Times, there a determined expurgator might April 17, 1915)- say the elision cures the defect. i66 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW This dictum appears to be too sweep- set, the connection between a short or ing. The discussion of the question, shortly scanned monosyllable, forming with exhaustive enumeration, which is the last syllable of the trochee, and the usually referred to is van Leeuwen's in syllable that follows it is said to be so Mnemos. XVIII. 2656°.,condensed (and close that they must be pronounced altered) in his Enchiridium, 18 ff. From without a pause or ictus-rest between this it appears that there are a number them; and so, it is explained, there is of lines which certainly exhibit this no break in the line. A common case caesura. Attempts have, of course, is one in which Kai is concerned. In been made to ' correct' most of them ; the hemistich oKrpnpov Kai aeiicia irr/priv but some resist, and van Leeuwen, in we are to scan crKrjirrpov \ KOX a-, not his paper in Mnemosyne, avoided, in atcrjiTTpov KOX | d-, and as Kai is gener- several cases, the Charybdis of the ally taken to be TrpoKkniKvyra-rov, this is fourth trochee only to fall into the no doubt correct, though surely the Kai Scylla of Wernicke.1 It must be ad- in such expressions adheres closely also mitted that there are some ineradicable to the word that precedes it.2 So with cases in the poems. certain prepositions in the same position And the enumeration in question in the verse. These, it is said, ad se- shows that there are really more quentia trahuntur in such combinations instances than those included in this as <f>epo)V dv' ofuXov avravrr) or ve&v &v unyielding residuum. These are ex- dya>vi ireaovra. The preposition is plained away, some as inexcusable, treated as practically inseparable from others as only apparent. Thus, in one the word it governs. But Dr. Leaf, class of cases the effect of the final when considering some violations of polysyllable is relied on, and a-repvov he Wernicke's Law {Iliad, vol. ii. 636), Hocrei&davi and e/totcrt Kaa-iyvrJToicri are tells us that the connection of the not objected to. But as it is not sug- Homeric preposition with its case is gested by van Leeuwen or any other loose, and it is not always easy to say authority that the polysyllable helps to whether the preposition is in closer palliate the objectionable element, what- union with the word that follows or ever that may be, in a fourth trochee, with the verb or other word that pre- how can he say that it renders the cedes. But in addition to this a diffi- passages in question ' to some extent culty arises. We have, though more tolerable ?' It has no doubt occurred rarely, the same species of combination to some who have wondered what there in the third foot—irpoirdpotde irvkdav, might be in this polysyllable, that the rrfke veo<>, or even TTOVTW iv. If there is excuse is based on the length of the practically a coalescence of preposition word, which makes it difficult i<f>ap- and noun in such phrases in the fio^eiv e^a/ierptp. But as HoaeiSdcovi fourth foot, we must hold the same (-os, -a) and Kaaiyvrfroicrt,, and many about them when they occur in the other words of the same metrical value, third, and give up in the latter case the are found frequently in other positions, most characteristic rhythm of the and are final in only ten cases, the Homeric hexameter. Lines containing difficulty in accommodating them does the common break in the third foot not warrant resort to a scansion that is must be converted into hephthemimerals essentially vicious. Homer uses even or worse. The reply will be, presum- longer words without detriment to the ably, that that result must be accepted, metre. but it is a question if such a metrical construction of these third trochees has But there are many other lines which ever occurred to any one. may be construed as containing a fourth The same may be said of another trochaic. In regard to these it is argued that there is no caesura at all. In one 2 The fact that the diphthong of K<U remains 1 Just as Wordsworth, in discussing fourth uncorrepted in some cases in the Bucolic spondaics in Theocritus (Preface, x), gets rid of Diaeresis—as, ayavbs Kai ijmos timo—seems to two by boldly rearranging the lines so as to show that a rest after the conjunction is not pre- produce fourth trochaics. cluded. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 167 considerable class. In these an encli- Sea and strand, and a lordlier land | than sea- tic makes a fourth trochee with a pre- tides rolling and rising sun Clasp and lighten in climes that brighten ] with ceding long syllable, and the phrase day when day that was here is done, which the trochee forms or ends is said Call aloud on their children, proud | with trust to be attached so intimately to the that future and past are oner word that follows, that no break is felt.