ounterbalance the
possible loss of freedom in expression.

There is another circumstance which tends to make modern rules of
prosody necessarily negative. Quantity, in English revivals of ancient
metre, depends not only on position, but on accent. But accent varies
greatly in different words; _heavy level ever cometh any_, have the same
accent as _empty evil either boometh penny_; but the first syllable in
the former set of words is lighter than in the latter. Hence, though
accented, they may, on occasion, be considered and used as short; as, on
the same principle, _dolorous stratagem echoeth family_, usually
dactyls, may, on occasion, become tribrachs. But how lay down any
positive rule in matter necessarily so fluctuating? We cannot. All we
can do is to refuse admission as short syllables to any heavier accented
syllable. Here, then, much must be left to individual discretion. My
translation of the Attis will best show my own feeling in the matter.
But I am fully aware that in this respect I have fallen far short of
consistency. I have made _any_ sometimes short, more often long; _to_,
usually short, is lengthened in lxi. 26, lxvii. 19, lxviii. 143; _with_
is similarly long, though not followed by a consonant, in lxi. 36;
_given_ is long in xxviii. 7, short in xi. 17, lxiv. 213; _are_ is short
in lxvii. 14; and more generally many syllables allowed to pass for
short in the Attis are elsewhere long. Nor have I scrupled to forsake
the ancient quantity in proper names; following Heyse, I have made the
first syllable of _Verona_ short in xxxv. 3, lxvii. 34, although it
retains its proper quantity in lxviii. 27. Again, _Pheneos_ is a dactyl
in lxviii. 111, while _Satrachus_ is an anapaest in xcv. 5. In many of
these instances I have acted consciously; if the writers of Greece and
Rome allowed many syllables to be doubtful, and almost as a principle
avoid perfect uniformity in the quantity of proper names, a greater
freedom may not unfairly be claimed by their modern imitators. If
Catullus could write _Phars(a)liam coeunt, Phars(a)lia regna
frequentant_, similar license may surely be extended to me. I believe,
indeed, that nothing in my translation is as violent as the double
quantity just mentioned in Catullus; but if there is, I would remind my
readers of Goethe's answer to the boy who told him he had been guilty of
a hexameter with seven feet, and applying the remark to any seeming
irregularities in my own translation wo