You may also remark that each pair of feet consists of ten[53] letters; and you may produce the same effect not in this way, but in a different one, so as to have many ways of putting one line; for instead you may read—
μέτρον φράσον μοι, τῶν ποδῶν μέτρον λαβών:
or this way—
λαβὼν μέτρον μοι τῶν ποδῶν, μέτρον φράσον.
[And you may take this line too—]
οὐ βούλομαι γὰρ τῶν ποδῶν μέτρον λαβεῖν,
[and transpose it thus—]
λαβεῖν μέτρον γὰρ τῶν ποδῶν οὐ βούλομαι.
82. But Pindar, with reference to the ode which was composed without a σ in it, as the same Clearchus tells us, as if some griphus had been proposed to him to be expressed in a lyric ode,—as many were offended because they considered it impossible to abstain from the σ, and because they did not approve of the way in which the idea was executed, uttered this sentence—
Before long series of songs were heard,
And the ill-sounding san from out men's mouths.