338 The Future Poetry
A_/
rma ̆vi/
̆r|u_
mque ̆ca/
̆|no_
,Tro_/
|jae_
qui_
|pri_/
mu ̆sa ̆b|o_/
ri_
sI_
ta/
̆li ̆|a_
m, fa_/
|to_
pro/
̆fu ̆|gu_
s, La_
|vi_/
na ̆que ̆|ve_/
ni ̆tLi_/
to ̆ra ̆.|—if they were read like an English line, would become some kind
of irregular and formless accentual hexameter, —
A/
rma|vi/
rumque|ca/
no,|Tro/
jae qui|pri/
mus ab|o/
risIta/
li|am, fa/
to|pro/
fugus, La|vi/
naque|ve/
nitLi/
tora.|—stress would preside and quantity fall into a subordinate second
place. If this did not and could not happen, it was evidently
because the accent was an inflexion or pitch of the voice and
not stress, not an emphatic pressure.^8 In English stress or voice
emphasis predominates and there is a very uneven distribution of
sound-values in which quantity is partly determined and, where
not determined, considerably influenced by stress; it has some
difficulty in asserting its full independent value. Moreover the
words do not cohere or run into each other as in a Sanskrit line,
(this cohesion was theraison d’etreˆ of the complicated law of
Sandhi by which the closing letter of one word so frequently
unites with the initial letter of its successor in a conjunct sound);
each word in English is independent and has its own metrical
value unaffected by the word that follows. In Sanskrit, as in
Latin and Greek, the short syllable having already its full natural
sound-value is affected by the additional consonant and passes
(^8) In the Latin metre accent and quantity coincide in the last two feet but not in the
earlier four feet; the Harvey type of hexameter has been criticised for not following this
rule, but the writers had no choice, — to do otherwise would have brought in the conflict
between stress and quantity which for the reason here stated could not occur in Latin.
In the English hexameter accent, stress andquantity have inevitably to fuse together in
the main long syllable of the foot; relief from a too insistent beat has to be sought by
other natural means or technical devices, modulation, the greater value given to long
unstressed syllables, variation of foot-grouping, pause, caesura.