Doubts, however, as to the pronunciation of certain words, leave the precise number of lines violating the rule given above undetermined. It is considered sufficient to show that, wherever they occur, the iambic character is violated.
The circumstance, however, of the last half of the third foot requiring an arsis, brings us only half way towards the doctrine of the cæsura. With this must be combined a second fact arising out of the constitution of the Greek language in respect to its accent. In accordance with the views just exhibited, the author conceives that no Greek word has an arsis upon the last syllable, except in the three following cases:—
1. Monosyllables, not enclitic; as [a]σφών], [a]πάς], [a]χθών], [a]δμώς], [a]νών], [a]νύν], &c.
2. Circumflex futures; as [a]νεμώ], [a]τεμώ], &c.
3. Words abbreviated by apocope; in which case the penultimate is converted into a final syllable; [a]δώμ'], [a]φειδέσθ'], [a]κεντείτ'], [a]εγώγ'], &c.
Now the fact of a syllable with an arsis being, in Greek, rarely final, taken along with that of the sixth syllable requiring an arsis, gives, as a matter of necessity, the circumstance that, in the Greek drama, the sixth syllable shall occur anywhere rather than at the end of a word; and this is only another way of saying, that, in a tragic senarius, the syllable in question shall generally be followed by other syllables in the same word. All this the author considers as so truly a matter of necessity, that the objection to his view of the Greek cæsura must lie either against his idea of the nature of the accents, or nowhere; since, that being admitted, the rest follows of course.
As the sixth syllable must not be final, it must be followed in the same word by one syllable, or by more than one.
1. The sixth syllable followed by one syllable in the same word.—This is only another name for the seventh syllable occurring at the end of a word, and it gives at once the hephthimimer cæsura: as—
[a]Ἡκω νεκρων κευθμώνα και σκοτου πυλας.]
[a]Ἱκτηριοις κλαδοίσιν εξεστεμμενοι.]
[a]Ὁμου τε παιανών τε και στεναγματων.]
2. The sixth syllable followed by two (or more) syllables in the same word.—This is only another name for the eighth (or some syllable after the eighth) syllable occurring at the end of a word; as—