Adjusting Words to Music: Prolongating Syllables and the Example of ‘Dactylo-Epitrite’

What is it about?

Normally the music of ancient Greek songs has perished. Often we can still deduce the rhythm from the time value of its syllables. But this has its limits where rests are involved, or a long syllable is stretched out over more than two time units. The paper shows how such instances can be investigated by language statistics: not all kinds of syllables can be stretched out, and the poet-composers, consciously or inadvertently, tried to avoid writing texts that would have sounded funny when sung.

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Why is it important?

The insights offered here take us a significant step further towards understanding the actual rhythm of ancient Greek music,