plumas y de oro_, p. 180, XL, l. 28.

When both vowels are accented hiatus is more common than synalepha,
even though there is no close syntactical relation, although the
vowels may be joined by synalepha if they do not come in a constituent
syllable.

Ex. _iOh ya isla catolica patente!_ Herrera. [Hiatus.]

Ex. _?Sabes tu^a donde va?_ p. 178, XXXVIII, l. 4. [Synalepha.]

II. RHYTHMIC ACCENT

The second essential element of Spanish verse is a rhythmic
distribution of accents within a line. Words have an accent of their
own and another stronger accent on account of their position in a
verse.

This extraordinary accentual stress, which strengthens periodically
certain naturally accented syllables of a verse, is known as _rhythmic
accent_. It plays somewhat the same role as did quantity in Latin
verse. All other accents and pauses in the verse are subservient to
the rhythmic accent.

Spanish verse being accentual, however, and not quantitative, the
terms used to determine the regular recurrence of long and short
syllables in Latin verse are not very applicable to it, and few
compositions are regular in the arrangement of the stress.

A. LATIN TERMS OF VERSIFICATION APPLIED TO SPANISH VERSE

As Latin terms of versification are sometimes applied to Spanish
verse, the following rules may be helpful.

A _trochaic_ octosyllabic line, for example, substituting stress for
quantity, would be scanned

/ -- | / -- | / -- | / --,

with the stress on the first, third, fifth, and seventh syllables.

_Iambic_ verse would have a regular alternation of unaccented and
accented syllables, -- / -- /, etc.

_Dactylic_ verse would have a regular recurrence of an accented
syllable followed by two unaccented syllables, etc.

/ -- -- | / -- -- |, etc.

_Amphibrachic_ verse would be formed by a regular recurrence of three
syllables of which the middle one would be stressed, -- / --. This
construction is sometimes followed in lines of twelve syllables (p.
164, I, 1. 2), and also in lines of six syllables (p. 167, VII, 1.-4).

_Anapestic_ verse consists of a regular recurrence of two unstressed
syllables preceding a stressed syllable, -- -- /. This is sometimes
found in ten-syllable lines (p. 164, I, 1. i).

B. SPANISH VERSE ENDINGS

An accented word is called _aguda_ when it has the accent on the last
syllable, e.g. _verdad, luz, yo_; _llana_ (or grave) when it has the
accent on the penult, e.g. _trabajo, f