26. The caesura of the verse exists, when the termination of a word falls on a place in the verse where one rhythm agreeable to the ear closes and another begins. The estimation of this belongs to the minuter acquaintance with versification. In a more limited sense, by the caesura of the verse is understood such a caesura in certain places in the verse, one of which is necessary to every good verse of the kind. Reference is had to this when it is said of a verse, that it has no caesura. Whereupon may be remarked:

a) That some kinds of verse have their caesura on a fixed place. Of this kind among the foregoing verses are 1) the pentameter which requires a word to end in the place marked above. This caesura can never be omitted. (2) The iambic, anapaestic, and trochaic_tetrameter catalectic, which all have their natural caesura at the end of the fourth foot. This caesura may be neglected.

b) Other kinds of verse have more than one place for the caesura, the choice of which is left to the poet. One, however, generally predominates over the rest. In hexameter this is commonly in the middle of the third foot, and either directly after its arsis, as

Μήνιν ἄειδε, θεά, | Πηληϊάδεω Αχιλῆος

Οὐκ ἄρα μοῦνον ἔην ¦ ἐρίδων γένος, ἀλλ' ἐπὶ γαῖαν

or in the middle of the thesis of a Dactyle, e. g.

"Ανδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, | πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλά. The first species is called the masculine or male cæsura, the second the female or trochaic cæsura. It rarely happens that both are absent from this third foot. Should they be wanting however, they are usually supplied by a cæsura in the second or one in the fourth foot, which are generally masculine, and the verse is the more harmonious, if both are used.

ἀλλὰ νέον [ συνορινόμεναι | κίνυντο φάλαγγες.

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ans.

THE DIGAMMA.*
*

In addition to the smooth and aspirated breathings, the ancient language had another, which remained longest among the EoliThis is most commonly called, from the appearance of the character F, used to denote it, Digamma, that is a double 1. It was a true consonant, and appears to have had the force off or v. It was attached to several words, which, in the more familiar dialect, had the smooth or the rough breathing. The whole doctrine, however, of the Digamma, for want of literary monuments remaining from the period when it was most in use, is exceedingly obscure. With respect to the application of the Digamma to the criticism of the text of Homer, a subject of so much note in modern times, the whole rests on the following remarkable observation. A certain number of words beginning with a vowel, among which the most common are the following, ou, of, &, dw, oixa, εἰπεῖν, ἄναξ, Ιλιος, οἶνος, οἶκος, ἔργον, ἴσος, ἕκαστος, with their 284 kindred words, have a hiatus so often before them, that if these words be excepted, the hiatus, at present so common in Homer, becomes very rare, and in most remaining cases has some particular justification. The same words, in comparison with others beginning with a vowel, are very rarely preceded by an apostrophe, and the immediately preceding long vowels and diphthongs are far less frequently made short, than before other vowels. The observation of these facts authorizes the assumption of something in the beginning of those words, to prevent the apostrophe and the shortening of the long vowels and to remove the hiatus. Since even short syllables ending in a consonant, as os, ov, are often made long before such words--although not in cæsura-just as if a position existed, the conjecture has been advanced in modern times, that all those words in the age of Homer were possessed of this initial breathing for v, of a force equivalent to a consonant, but had lost it before the poems of Homer, at a later period, were committed to writing. Inasmuch as in this interval, as well as afterwards, the poems of Homer were subject to no inconsiderable changes and accidents, affecting the condition of the text, it is easy to account for those instances in which even these indications of the Digamma have disappeared from the Homeric poems. To which may be added, that the transition or gradual disappearance of the digamma may already have begun in the time of Homer, and several words have been pronounced sometimes with and sometimes without it.

*The following account of the Digamma is translated from the author's larger Greek Grammar, page 19, (eighth edition,) and may be regarded as a supplement to what is stated above 6 Rem. 2.

Βαρύτονον, having a grave on Μετοχή, participle.

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EXPLANATION OF GRAMMATICAL TERMS.

Abundans a case of the same noun used in two different forms.
Anacoluthon a construction in which the end does not grammatically

correspond with the beginning, used for brevity or emphasis. Anastrophe moving the Accent back.

Aphaeresis the cutting off of one or more letters at the beginning
of a word, as είβω for λείβω, ἦ for φῆ or ἔφη.

Apocope, cutting off one or more letters at the end, as nάo for лaçά.
Apodosis the last part of a sentence.

Apposition the adding of a noun to the preceding noun, in the

same case, for the sake of explanation, as Kupos Basileus ἐμοὶ σῷ πατρί.

Asyndeton different parts of a sentence not joined together by a connective particle.

Attraction see § 142 and 144.

Causative verbs, § 114. 1. note.

Characteristic the letter preceding the w at the end of a verb. In πτ, κτ, μν, the former letter is the characteristic. § 91. Connective vowel (called also mode-vowel,) see § 87 Rem. 1:

Correlatives, § 78. 1. § 116.

Crasis a contraction of two vowels into a long one, § 28.
Diaeresis the division of a diphthong in two syllables as aüяvos,
§15. 3. § 27 Rem. 3.

66

Diastole and hypodiastole, see § 15. 2 "stops and marks.”

Elision the omission of the former of two successive vowels. Ellipsis the omission of one or more words, as ἐν ̓Αλκιβιάδου in the house of Alcibiades, doua being understood.,

Epenthesis the insertion of a letter in the middle of a word, as πτόλεμος for πόλεμος.

Heteroclite a noun of irregular declension.

Hiatus the concurrence of an initial with a final vowel.

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