xvi. 69. Let's márch: ⋀ ⩡ the tábles áll are spréad.
The silent foot allows for the rhetorical pause between command and affirmation. Cf. vi. 146. Dy.'s 'Let us march hence,' and G.'s 'Let us march on,' will do well enough if we must keep somebody talking all the time.
D. Additional Syllables.—Like the foregoing apparently deficient lines it will be found that, properly read, most of the so-called hypermetric lines conform to the pentameter. The dozen or so that do not are warranted by historic, if not by rhetorical, conditions. At any rate they are much more likely to be the lines that Greene wrote than are the 'procrustitutes' which we might suggest.
1. Readers should allow for feminine endings, as
ix. 111. To thém of Síen, Flórence ánd Belógna;
or Bolónia, gliding ending.
Of feminine endings Knaut counts ten, and about four gliding.
2. They should allow also for the anapæst in itself (as ix. 231) or by way of compensation for a missing syllable in an adjoining foot. Two such give the appearance of a senarius. Occasionally, as in vi. 163 ('gay straightwáy,' or 'way from Frés—'), the foot is awkward. Even so, I do not think that the emendation 'straight' (Dy., W.) for this 'straightway' is necessary.
3. Senarii. (a) The following are such in appearance only. They should be read as pentameters in which the anapæst, slurring, or elision, is employed. In