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1. Diseme syllables may be sung on three notes, normally of the rhythmic pattern  , with the second short note of the usual binary division  itself divided into two. In one instance it seems to be  , and in a couple of others the notation (so far as legible) is not exact enough for the rhythm to be determined. An earlier example than those of the papyri can be recognized in the late Hellenistic inscription from the neighbourhood of Mylasa (14).29 |
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2. Short syllables may be sung on two notes, the standard short note  being bisected,  . In two places a short final vowel, which would normally be treated as elided before another short vowel, is written unelided, both vowels being assigned notes which, to fit the rhythm, must be interpreted as  . In these and some other cases of bisected short, the second note is the same as that on the following syllable, and it could be classified as the ornament known as the note of anticipation or 'cadent'.30 |
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3. In the Oslo papyrus (30) three times, in the Berlin Ajax excerpt (42), and in POxy. 3161 (45) we find mythological namesAjax, Ixion, Tantalus, Deidameia, Nereustreated in an especially elaborate fashion (Ex. 7.3), with one of their syllables, usually the first, prolonged to twice its proper length. |
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(The rhythmical interpretation of Nereus is uncertain. Tantalus is too battered for public exhibition.) |
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The Berlin Paean is a special case because of its solemn, spondaic tempo (cf. p. 155). Its diseme and tetraseme units are subject to the same patterns of melodic division as the standard shorts and longs in |
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29 Although this triple division of disemes first appears in regular use in the later period, I suspect that it originated as an occasional ornament in Euripides' time, and that this is what Aristophanes' heieieieilisso is parodying. |
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30 See NG xiii. 850. |
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