The distinction between accent and quantity is clear, and was, no doubt,
observed by the ancients in the recitation of verse. But I believe such
recitation to have been always an artificial thing, and that the common
conversation was entirely regulated by accent. I do not think it possible
to _talk_ any language without confounding the quantity of syllables with
their high or low tones[1]; although you may _sing_ or _recitative_ the
difference well enough. Why should the marks of accent have been considered
exclusively necessary for teaching the pronunciation to the Asiatic or
African Hellenist, if the knowledge of the acuted syllable did not also
carry the stress of time with it? If _[Greek: **anthropos]_ was to be
pronounced in common conversation with a perceptible distinction of the
length of the penultima as well as of the elevation of the antepenultima,
why was not that long quantity also marked? It was surely as important an
ingredient in the pronunciation as the accent. And although the letter
omega might in such a word show the quantity, yet what do you say to such
words as [Greek: lelonchasi, tupsasa], and the like--the quantity of the
penultima of which is not marked to the eye at all? Besides, can we
altogether disregard the practice of the modern Greeks? Their confusion of
accent and quantity in verse is of course a barbarism, though a very old
one, as the _versus politici_ of John Tzetzes [2] in the twelfth century
and the Anacreontics prefixed to Proclus will show; but these very examples
prove _a fortiori_ what the common pronunciation in prose then was.
[Footnote 1:
This opinion, I need not say, is in direct opposition to the conclusion of
Foster and Mitford, and scarcely reconcilable with the apparent meaning of
the authorities from the old critics and grammarians. Foster's opponent was
for rejecting the accents and attending only to the syllabic quantity;--Mr.
C. would, _in prose_, attend to the accents only as indicators of the
quantity, being unable to conceive any practical distinction between time
and tone in common speech. Yet how can we deal with the authority of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone, who, on the one hand, discriminates
quantity so exquisitely as to make four degrees of _shortness_ in the
penultimates of _[Greek: --hodos hr odos, tz opos]_ and _[Greek: --stz
ophos]_, and this expressly _[Greek: --eu logois psilois]_, or plain prose,
as well as in verse; and on the other hand declares, according to the
evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference
between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and not in
the quality, of tones:--_[Greek: **to Poso diallattousa taes su odais kahi
oznauois, kahi ouchi to Poio_. (Pezhi Sun. c. 11.?]) The extreme
sensibility of the Athenian ear to the accent in prose is, indeed, proved
by numerous anecdotes, one of the most amusing of which, though, perhaps,
not the best authenticated as a fact, is that of Demosthenes in the Speech
for the Crown, asking, "Whether, O Athenians, does Aeschines appear to you
to be the mercenary (_[Greek: **misthothos]_} of Alexander, or his guest or
friend (_[Greek: **xenos]_)?" It is said that he pronounced _[Greek:
**misthothos]_ with a false accent on the antepenultima, as _[Greek:
**misthotos]_, and that upon the audience immediately crying out, by way of
correction, _[Greek: **misthothos]_, with an emphasis, the orator continued
coolly,--_[Greek: **achoueis a legousi]_--"You yourself hear what they
say!" Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly, or in ignorance, to
have sworn in some speech by _[Greek: Asklaepios]_, throwing the accent
falsely on the antepenultima, and that, upon being interrupted for it, he
declared, in his justification, that the pronunciation was proper, for that
the divinity was _[Greek: aepios]_, mild. The expressions in Plutarch are
very striking:--"[Greek: **Thozuxon ekinaesen, omnue dhe kahi thon'
Asklaepion, pzopasoxunon' Asklaepion, kai pazedeiknuen autohn ozthos
legonta' einai gahz tohn thehon aepion' kahi epi outo polakis
hethozuzaethae." Dec. Orat._--Ed.]
[Footnote 2:
See his Chiliads. The sort of verses to which Mr. Coleridge alluded are the
following, which those who consider the scansion to be accentual, take for
tetrameter catalectic iambics, like--
[Greek: ----]
(
_Chil_. I.
I 'll climb the frost | y mountains high |, and there I 'll coin | the weather;
I'll tear the rain | bow from the sky |, and tie both ends | together.
Some critics, however, maintain these verses to be trochaics, although very
loose and faulty. See Foster, p. 113. A curious instance of the early
confusion of accent and quantity may be seen in Prudentius, who shortens
the penultima in _eremus_ and _idola_, from [Greek: ezaemos] and [Greek:
eidola].
Cui jejuna _eremi_ saxa loquacibus
Exundant scatebris, &c.
_Cathemer_. V. 89.
--cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camoenas,
_Idola_, conflavit fallendi trina potestas.
_Cont. Symm_. 47.--ED.]
_August 24. 1833._