3. Maximus Planudes (Walz Rhett. Gr. v. 491), referring to this passage, says: ἃ πῶς ἂν εἶεν προσῳδικὰ (v. προσῳδιακὰ) καὶ προσόμοια τοῖς πριαπείοις, ἢ πάλιν πῶς ταῦτα πριάπεια, οὐδαμῶς ἔχω συνορᾶν. For the prosodia (προσόδια, sc. ᾄσματα: also called προσοδιακοί), or processional songs, see Weir Smyth’s Greek Melic Poets p. xxxiii.; and for the various metres employed see pp. xxxiv., xxxv. ibid. It is clear that Dionysius is not here thinking specially of the so-called προσοδιακὸς πούς (– – ᴗ). Cp. Bacchyl. Fragm. 19 (Bergk: 7, Jebb).—Reading προσῳδικοὺς (with the inferior MSS.), and translating by ‘accentual,’ A. J. Ellis (English, Dionysian, and Hellenic Pronunciation of Greek p. 37) thinks that Dionysius means “verses in which the effect of high pitch was increased by superadding stress, so as to give it preponderance over mere quantity”; and he points out that E. M. Geldart shows (Journal of Philology 1869, vol. ii. p. 160) that these transformed lines of Homer, if read as modern Greek, would give rather rough στίχοι πολιτικοί, or the usual modern accentual verse [the ‘city verses’ referred to by Gibbon, c. 53]. Though it is perhaps unlikely that Dionysius makes any direct reference to such a change, a stress-accent may, even in his day, have gradually been triumphing over that pitch-accent which was consistent with the observance of metrical quantity. Cp. F. Spencer French Verse p. 70.
5. The metrical difficulties presented by these sections of the C. V. are discussed in Amsel’s de Vi atque Indole Rhythmorum quid Veteres Iudicaverint pp. 32 ff. The unprofitably ingenious efforts of some ancient writers to derive every kind of metre from the heroic hexameter and the iambic trimeter might be capped, and parodied, by an attempt to turn such a line as Il. xxiii. 644 (ἔργων τοιούτων. ἐμὲ δὲ χρὴ γήραϊ λυγρῷ) into an iambic trimeter: the only thing needed being that the ι of γήραϊ should be not adscript but subscript. So Schol. Ven. A (ad loc.) ὅτι ὁ στίχος οὗτος καὶ ἑξάμετρος γίνεται καὶ τρίμετρος παρὰ τὴν ἀγωγὴν τῆς προφορᾶς, and Schol. Townl. ἐπιτέτευκται ὁ στίχος ταῖς κοιναῖς, ὥστ’ ἢν θέλωμεν καὶ ἴαμβος ἔσται, ὡς τὸ “σμύρνης ἀκράτου καὶ κέδρου νηλεῖ καπνῷ” (for the doubtful ascription of this last line to Callimachus see Schneider’s Callimachea ii. 777).
10. For the author of these Priapean verses—Euphorion (or Euphronius) ‘of the Chersonese’—see the long discussion in Susemihl’s Gesch. d. griech. Litt. in der Alexandrinerzeit i. 281, 283. It is Hephaestion (de Metris Enchiridion c. 16, ed. Westphal) who attributes the lines Εὐφορίωνι τῷ Χερρονησιώτῃ.
15. The commentators on Hermogenes secure trochees by changing the order of the words in this line—ἔκειτο καὶ δίφρου τανυσθείς, or τανυσθεὶς κεῖτο καὶ δίφρου.
τοιαῦτ’ ἐστὶ τὰ Σωτάδεια ταυτί·
ἔνθ’ οἱ μὲν ἐπ’ ἄκραισι πυραῖς νέκυες ἔκειντο
γῆς ἐπὶ ξένης, ὀρφανὰ τείχεα προλιπόντες
Ἑλλάδος ἱερῆς καὶ μυχὸν ἑστίης πατρῴης,
ἥβην τ’ ἐρατὴν καὶ καλὸν ἡλίου πρόσωπον. 5
δυναίμην δ’ ἂν ἔτι πολλὰς ἰδέας μέτρων καὶ διαφόρους εἰς τὸν
ἡρωϊκὸν ἐμπιπτούσας στίχον ἐπιδεικνύναι, τὸ δ’ αὐτὸ καὶ τοῖς
ἄλλοις ὀλίγου δεῖν πᾶσι συμβεβηκὸς μέτροις τε καὶ ῥυθμοῖς
ἀποφαίνειν, ὥστε τῆς μὲν ἐκλογῆς τῶν ὀνομάτων τῆς αὐτῆς
μενούσης, τῆς δὲ συνθέσεως μόνης μεταπεσούσης τά τε 10
μέτρα μεταρρυθμίζεσθαι καὶ συμμεταπίπτειν αὐτοῖς τὰ
σχήματα, τὰ χρώματα, τὰ ἤθη, τὰ πάθη, τὴν ὅλην τῶν
ποιημάτων ἀξίωσιν· ἀλλ’ ἀναγκασθήσομαι πλειόνων ἅψασθαι
θεωρημάτων, ὧν ἔνια ὀλίγοις πάνυ ἐστὶ γνώριμα. ἐπὶ πολλῶν
δ’ ἴσως καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα ἐπὶ τῶν τοιούτων καλῶς ἂν ἔχοι 15
τὰ Εὐριπίδεια ταῦτα ἐπενεγκεῖν·
μή μοι
λεπτῶν θίγγανε μύθων, ψυχή·
τί περισσὰ φρονεῖς; εἰ μὴ μέλλεις
σεμνύνεσθαι παρ’ ὁμοίοις. 20