CHAPTER XV. SYLLABLES AND THEIR QUALITIES
Such is the number of the letters, and such are their properties. From them are formed the so-called syllables. Of these syllables, those are long which contain long vowels or variable vowels when pronounced long, and those which end in a long letter or a letter pronounced long, or in one of the semi-vowels and one of the mutes. Those are short which contain a short vowel or one taken as short, and those which end in such vowels. There is more than one kind of length and shortness of syllables: some are longer than the long and some shorter than the short. And this will be made clear by consideration of the examples which I am about to adduce.
It will be admitted that a syllable is short which is formed by the short vowel ο, as, for example, in the word ὁδός. To this let the semi-vowel ρ be prefixed and Ῥόδος be formed. The syllable still remains short; but not equally so, for it will show some slight difference when compared with the former. Further, let one of the mutes, τ, be prefixed and τρόπος be formed. This again will be longer than the former syllables; yet it still remains short. Let still a third letter, σ, be prefixed to the same syllable and στρόφος be formed. This will have become longer than the shortest syllable by three audible prefixes; and yet it still remains short. So, then, here are four grades of short syllables, with only our instinctive feeling for quantity as a measure of the difference. The same principle applies to the long syllable. The syllable formed from η, though long by nature, yet when augmented by the addition of four letters, three prefixed and one suffixed, as in the word σπλήν, would surely be said to be ampler than that syllable, in its original form, that consisted of a single letter. At all events, if it were in turn deprived, one by one, of the added letters, it would show perceptible changes in the way of diminution. As to the reason why long syllables do not transcend their natural quality when lengthened to five letters, nor short syllables drop from their shortness when reduced from many letters to one, the former being still regarded as double the shorts, and the latter as half the longs, — this does not at present demand examination. It is sufficient to say what is really germane to the present subject, namely, that one short syllable may differ from another short, and one long from another long, and that every short and every long syllable has not the same quality either in prose, or in poems, or in songs, whether these be metrically or rhythmically constructed.
The foregoing is the first aspect under which we view the different qualities of syllables. The next is as follows. As letters have many points of difference, not only in length and shortness, but also in sound — points of which I have spoken a little while ago — it must necessarily follow that the syllables, which are combinations or interweavings of letters, preserve at once both the individual properties of each component, and the joint properties of all, which spring from their fusion and juxtaposition. The sounds thus formed are soft or hard, smooth or rough, sweet to the ear or harsh to it; they make us pull a wry face, or cause our mouths to water, or bring about any of the countless other physical conditions that are possible.
These facts the greatest poets and prose-writers have carefully noted, and not only do they deliberately arrange their words and weave them into appropriate patterns, but often, with curious and loving skill, they adapt the very syllables and letters to the emotions which they wish to represent. This is Homer’s way when he is describing a wind-swept beach and wishes to express the ceaseless reverberation by the prolongation of syllables: —
Echo the cliffs, as bursteth the sea-surge down on the strand.
Or again when, after the Cyclops has been blinded, Homer desires to express the greatness of his anguish, and his hands’ slow search for the door of the cavern: —
The Cyclops, with groan on groan and throes of anguish sore,
With hands slow-groping.
And when in another place he wishes to indicate a long impassioned prayer: —
Not though in an agony Phoebus the Smiter from Far should entreat
Low-grovelling at Father Zeus the Aegis-bearer’s feet.
Such lines are to be found without number in Homer, representing length of time, hugeness of body, stress of emotion, immobility of position, or similar effects, simply by the manipulation of the syllables. Conversely, others are framed to give the impression of abruptness, speed, hurry, and the like. For instance,
Wailing with broken sobs amidst of her handmaids she cried,
and
And scared were the charioteers, that tireless flame to behold.
In the first passage the stoppage of Andromache’s breath is indicated, and the tremor of her voice; in the second, the startled dismay of the charioteers, and the unexpectedness of the terror. The effect in both cases is due to the docking of syllables and letters.
CHAPTER XVI. POETIC SKILL IN THE CHOICE AND IN THE COMBINATION OF WORDS
The poets and prose-writers themselves, then, with their eye on each object in turn, frame — as I said — words which seem made for, and are pictures of, the things they connote. But they also borrow many words from earlier writers, in the very form in which those writers fashioned them — when such words are imitative of things, as in the following instances: —
For the vast sea-swell on the beach crashed down with a thunder-shock.
And adown the blasts of the wind he darted with one wild scream.
Even as when the surge of the seething sea falls dashing
(On a league-long strand, with the roar of the rollers thunderous-crashing).
And his eyes for the hiss of the arrows, the hurtling of lances, were keen.
The great originator and teacher in these matters is Nature, who prompts us to imitate and to assign words by which things are pictured, in virtue of certain resemblances which are founded in reason and appeal to our intelligence. It is by her that we have been taught to speak of the bellowing of bulls, the whinnying of horses, the snorting of goats, the roar of fire, the rushing of winds, the creaking of hawsers, and numerous other similar imitations of sound, form, action, emotion, movement, stillness, and anything else whatsoever. On these points much has been said by our predecessors, the most important contributions being by the first of them to introduce the subject of etymology, Plato the disciple of Socrates, in his Cratylus especially, but in many other places as well.
What is the sum and substance of my argument? It is that it is due to the interweaving of letters that the quality of syllables is so multifarious; to the combination of syllables that the nature of words has such wide diversity; to the arrangement of words that discourse takes on so many forms. The conclusion is inevitable — that style is beautiful when it contains beautiful words, — that beauty of words is due to beautiful syllables and letters, — that language is rendered charming by the things that charm the ear in virtue of affinities in words, syllables, and letters; and that the differences in detail between these, through which are indicated the characters, emotions, dispositions, actions and so forth of the persons described, are made what they are through the original grouping of the letters.
To set the matter in a clearer light, I will illustrate my argument by a few examples. Other instances — and there are plenty of them — you will find for yourself in the course of your own investigations. When Homer, the poet above all others many-voiced, wishes to depict the young bloom of a lovely countenance and a beauty that brings delight, he will use the finest of the vowels and the softest of the semi-vowels; he will not pack his syllables with mute letters, nor impede the utterance by putting next to one another words hard to pronounce. He will make the harmony of the letters strike softly and pleasingly upon the ear, as in the following lines: —
Now forth of her bower hath gone Penelope passing-wise
Lovely as Artemis, or as Aphrodite the Golden.
Only once by the Sun-god’s altar in Delos I chanced to espy
So stately a shaft of a palm that gracefully grew thereby.
Rose Chloris, fair beyond word, wh
om Nereus wedded of old,
For her beauty his heart had stirred, and he wooed her with gifts untold.
But when he introduces a sight that is pitiable, or terrifying, or august, he will not employ the finest of the vowels. He will take the hardest to utter of the fricatives or of the mutes, and will pack his syllables with these. For instance: —
But dreadful he burst on their sight, with the sea-scum all fouled o’er.
And thereon was embossed the Gorgon-demon, with stony gaze
Grim-glaring, and Terror and Panic encompassed the Fearful Face.
When he wishes to reproduce in his language the rush of meeting torrents and the roar of confluent waters, he will not employ smooth syllables, but strong and resounding ones: —
And even as Wintertide torrents down-rushing from steep hill-sides
Hurl their wild waters in one where a cleft of the mountain divides.
When he depicts a hero, though heavy with his harness, putting forth all his energies against an opposing stream, and now holding his own, now being carried off his feet, he will contrive counter-buffetings of syllables, arresting pauses, and letters that block the way: —
Round Achilles the terrible surge towered seething on every side,
And a cataract dashed and crashed on his shield: all vainly he sought
Firm ground for his feet.
When men are being dashed against rocks, and he is portraying the noise and their pitiable fate, he will linger on the harshest and most ill-sounding letters, altogether avoiding smoothness or prettiness in the structure: —
And together laid hold on twain, and dashed them against the ground
Like whelps: down gushed the brain, and bespattered the rock-floor round.
It would be a long task to attempt to adduce specimens of all the artistic touches of which examples might be demanded in this one field. So, contenting myself with what has been said, I will pass to the next point.
I hold that those who wish to fashion a style which is beautiful in the collocation of sounds must combine in it words which all carry the impression of elegance, grandeur, or dignity. Something has been said about these matters, in a general way, by the philosopher Theophrastus in his work on Style, where he distinguishes two classes of words — those which are naturally beautiful (whose collocation, for example, in composition will, he thinks, make the phrasing beautiful and grand), and those, again, which are paltry and ignoble, of which he says neither good poetry can be constructed nor good prose. And, really and truly, our author is not far from the mark in saying this. If, then, it were possible that all the parts of speech by which a given subject is to be expressed should be euphonious and elegant, it would be madness to seek out the inferior ones. But if this be out of the question, as in many cases it is, then we must endeavour to mask the natural defects of the inferior letters by interweaving and mingling and juxtaposition, and this is just what Homer is accustomed to do in many passages. For instance, if any poet or rhetorician whatsoever were to be asked what grandeur or elegance there is in the names which have been given to the Boeotian towns, — Hyria, Mycalessus, Graia, Eteonus, Scolus, Thisbe, Onchestus, Eutresis, and the rest of the series which the poet enumerates, — no one would be able to point to any trace of such qualities. But Homer has interwoven and interspersed them with pleasant-sounding supplementary words into so beautiful a texture that they appear the most magnificent of all names: —
Lords of Boeotia’s host came Leitus, Peneleos,
Prothoenor and Arcesilaus and Clonius for battle uprose,
With the folk that in Hyrie dwelt, and by Aulis’s crag-fringed steep,
And in Schoinus and Scolus, and midst Eteonus’ hill-clefts deep,
In Thespeia and Graia, and green Mycalessus the land broad-meadowed,
And in Harma and Eilesius, and Erythrae the mountain-shadowed,
And they that in Eleon abode, and in Hyle and Peteon withal,
And in Ocalee and in Medeon, burg of the stately wall.
As I am addressing men who know their Homer, I do not think there is need to multiply examples. All his Catalogue of the towns is on the same high level, and so are many other passages in which, being compelled to take words not naturally beautiful, he places them in a setting of beautiful ones, and neutralizes their offensiveness by the shapeliness of the others. On this branch of my subject I have now said enough.
CHAPTER XVII. ON RHYTHMS, OR FEET
I have mentioned that rhythm contributes in no small degree to dignified and impressive composition; and I will treat of this point also. Let no one suppose that rhythm and metre belong to the science of song only; that ordinary speech is neither rhythmical nor metrical; and that I am going astray in introducing those subjects here.
In point of fact, every noun, verb, or other part of speech, which does not consist of a single syllable only, is uttered in some sort of rhythm. (I am here using “rhythm” and “foot” as convertible terms.) A disyllabic word may take three different forms. It may have both syllables short, or both long, or one short and the other long. Of this third rhythm there are two forms: one beginning in a short and ending in a long, the other beginning in a long and ending in a short. The one which consists of two shorts is called hegemon or pyrrhich, and is neither impressive nor solemn. Its character is as follows: —
Pick up the limbs at thy feet newly-scattered.
That which has both its syllables long is called a spondee, and possesses great dignity and much stateliness. Here is an example of it: —
Ah, which way must I haste? — had I best flee
By this path? or by that path shall it be?
That which is composed of a short and a long is called iambus if it has the first syllable short; it is not ignoble. If it begins with the long syllable, it is called a trochee, and is less manly than the other and more ignoble. The following is an example of the former: —
My leisure serves me now, Menoetius’ son.
Of the other: —
Heart of mine, O heart in turmoil with a throng of crushing cares!
These are all the varieties, rhythms, and forms of disyllabic words. Those of the trisyllabic are distinct; they are more numerous than those mentioned, and the study of them is more complicated. First comes that which consists entirely of short syllables, and is called by some choree (or tribrach), of which the following is an example: —
Bromius, wielder of spears,
Lord of war and the onset-cheers.
This foot is mean and wanting in dignity and nobility, and nothing noble can be made out of it. But that which consists entirely of long syllables — molossus, as the metrists call it — is elevated and dignified, and has a mighty stride. The following is an example of it: —
O glorious saviours, Zeus’ and Leda’s sons.
That which consists of a long and two shorts, with the long in the middle, bears the name of amphibrachys, and has no strong claim to rank with the graceful rhythms, but is enervated and has about it much that is feminine and ignoble, e.g. —
Triumphant Iacchus that leadest this chorus.
That which commences with two shorts is called an anapaest, and possesses much dignity. Where it is necessary to invest a subject with grandeur or pathos, this foot may be appropriately used. Its form may be illustrated by —
Ah, the coif on mine head all too heavily weighs.
That which begins with the long and ends with the shorts is called a dactyl; it is decidedly impressive, and remarkable for its power to produce beauty of style. It is to this that the heroic line is mainly indebted for its grace. Here is an example: —
Sped me from Ilium the breeze, and anigh the Ciconians brought me.
The rhythmists, however, say that the long syllable in this foot is shorter than the perfect long. Not being able to say by how much, they call it “irrational.” There is another foot having a rhythm corresponding to this, which starts with the short syllables and ends with the “irrational” one. This they distingui
sh from the anapaest and call it “cyclic,” adducing the following line as an example of it: —
On the earth is the high-gated city laid low.
This question cannot be discussed here; but both rhythms are of the distinctly beautiful sort. One class of trisyllabic rhythms still remains, which is composed of two longs and a short. It takes three shapes. When the short is in the middle and the longs at the ends, it is called a cretic and has no lack of nobility. A sample of it is: —
On they sped, borne on sea-wains with prows brazen-beaked.
But if the two long syllables occupy the beginning, and the short one the end, as in the line
Phoebus, to thee and the Muses worshipped with thee, the structure is exceptionally virile, and is appropriate for solemn language. The effect will be the same if the short be placed before the longs; for this foot also has dignity and grandeur. Here is an example of it: —
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 128