To make this line exact, one feels that the word mando, which terminates it, should be composed of two longs, that is to say, that it should be written mandò, which could not be without altering the sense entirely. Marchetti has translated into blank verse the Latin poem of Lucretius. I will quote the opening lines. Here is evident the softness to which I take exception and which prevents them from being really eumolpique, according to the sense that I have attached to this word.
Alma figlia di Giove, inclita madre
Del gran germe d’Enea, Venere bella,
Degli uomini piacere e degli Dei:
Tu, che sotto il volubili e lucenti
Segni del cielo, il mar profundo, e tutta
D’animai d’ogni specie orni la terra:
... etc.
[225] One must not believe that the mute e with which many English words terminate represents the French feminine final, expressed by the same vowel. This mute e is in reality mute in English; ordinarily it is only used to give a more open sound to the vowel which precedes it, as in tale, scene, bone, pure, fire. Besides it is never taken into account, either in the measure or in the prosody of the lines. Thus these two lines of Dryden rhyme exactly:
“Now scarce the Trojan fleet with sails and oars