[880] In lyrics a long syllable (if it does not end with a consonant) may be shortened—instead of disappearing by elision—before a vowel.
[881] ἡ ἐπῳδός. The masculine word, ὁ ἐπῳδός, has a different meaning, with which we are familiar from the Epodes of Horace—a poem which repeats from beginning to end the same period, each period being usually two cola “which either have equal length, or the second of which is catalectic or ‘falling’ or is even shortened by an entire measure” (see Schmidt’s Introduction, Eng. tr. by Prof. J. W. White, pp. 93 sqq.).
[882] Though my obligations to Dr. J. H. H. Schmidt’s volumes, especially Die Eurhythmie in den Chorgesängen der Griechen, are very great, I cannot see in his verse-pause—according to him (Eurhythmie, p. 89) the foundation of his system—anything but a delusion. Dr. Schmidt’s own appendices show a good minority of “verses” which end with no pause.
[883] The first two syllables (⏑⏑) correspond to the first (–) of Οἰδίπου.
[884] How? By examination of the whole period. If we look at the seventh line of the strophe from Antigone, scanned above, it may seem arbitrary to write
– ˃
| αιναν ‖
rather than
⏗ –
| αιν|ανꞈ‖.
But the former method is suggested by the corresponding fourth line, which cannot possibly be scanned otherwise than as above, and which therefore has four feet; hence we scan -αιναν so as to give the seventh line also four, not five, feet altogether.
[885] It is therefore possible to scan the ordinary iambics of dialogue as trochees:—