Hush ye, O hush ye! light be the tread
Of the sandal; no jar let there be!
Afar step ye thitherward, far from his bed.[129]
In these lines the words σῖγα σῖγα λευκόν are sung to one note; and yet each of the three words has both low pitch and high pitch. And the word ἀρβύλης has its third syllable sung at the same pitch as its middle syllable, although it is impossible for a single word to take two acute accents. The first syllable of τίθετε is sung to a lower note, while the two that follow it are sung to the same high note. The circumflex accent of κτυπεῖτε has disappeared, for the two syllables are uttered at one and the same pitch. And the word ἀποπρόβατε does not receive the acute accent on the middle syllable; but the pitch of the third syllable has been transferred to the fourth.
The same thing happens in rhythm. Ordinary prose speech does not violate or interchange the quantities in any noun or verb. It keeps the syllables long or short as it has received them by nature. But the arts of rhythm and music alter them by shortening or lengthening, so that often they pass into their opposites: the time of production is not regulated by the
1 σῖγα σῖγα M2: σίγα σίγα cett. (necnon codd. Eur.) || λευκὸν codd. Dionys.: λεπτὸν Eurip. 2 τίθετ(αι) P1: τιθεῖτ(αι) P2: τιθεῖτε FEMV || κτυπῆτε P1: κτυπεῖτε cett. 3 ἀποπρόβατ’ V: ἄπο προβᾶτ’ PM: ἄπο πρόβατ’ FE || ἐκεῖσε libri || ἀποπρόμοι F, EPM: ἀπόπροθι Vs 6 τῆι F, E: ἐπὶ PMV 8 τίθεται FP: τιθεῖτε EMV 9 δ’ αἱ Us.: δὲ libri 11 ἀποπρόβατ’ V: ἄπο*προβᾶτε P: ἄπο πρόβατε EF: ἄπο προβᾶτ’ ἐκεῖσε M 13 καταβέβηκεν PMV 18 καὶ αὔξουσαι PMV
2. τίθετε is clearly right, notwithstanding the strong manuscript evidence (FEMV) for τιθεῖτε.
4. The general sense is that σῖγα is sung upon a monotone, though the spoken word had two tones or pitches (the acute and the grave, the high and the low), and, “indeed, both of them combined in the circumflex accent of its first syllable” (Hadley Essays p. 113).
7. Dionysius clearly means “in speaking,” and “on two successive syllables.” Without the latter addition, the case of an enclitic throwing back its accent on a proparoxytone word seems to be left out of account.
14. D. B. Monro Modes of Ancient Greek Music p. 117 writes: “In English the time or quantity of syllables is as little attended to as the pitch. But in Greek the distinction of long and short furnished a prose rhythm which was a serious element in their rhetoric. In the rhythm of music, according to Dionysius, the quantity of syllables could be neglected, just as the accent was neglected in the melody. This, however, does not mean that the natural time of the syllables could be treated with the freedom which we see in a modern composition. The regularity of lyric metres is sufficient to prove that the increase or diminution of natural quantity referred to by Dionysius was kept within narrow limits, the nature of which is to be gathered from the remains of the ancient system of Rhythmic. From these sources we learn with something like certainty that the rhythm of ordinary speech, as determined by the succession of long or short syllables, was the basis of metres not only intended for recitation, such as the hexameter and the iambic trimeter, but also of lyrical rhythm of every kind.” With this statement should be compared the extract (given below, l. 17) from Goodell’s Greek Metric.
16. τῇ φύσει: cp. Cic. Orat. 51. 173 “et tamen omnium longitudinum et brevitatum in sonis sicut acutarum graviumque vocum iudicium ipsa natura in auribus nostris collocavit.” And with regard to accentuation as well as quantities: id. ib. 18. 57 “est autem etiam in dicendo quidam cantus obscurior ... in quo illud etiam notandum mihi videtur ad studium persequendae suavitatis in vocibus: ipsa enim natura, quasi modularetur hominum orationem, in omni verbo posuit acutam vocem nec una plus nec a postrema syllaba citra tertiam; quo magis naturam ducem ad aurium voluptatem sequatur industria.”