9
Those critics are therefore wrong who censure this manner of idiom and poke fun at the poet, as did the elder EucleidesA critic of this name wrote on the drama, but his date is uncertain. who said it was easy to write poetry, granted the right to lengthen syllables at will. He had made a burlesque in this very style: Ἐπιχάρην εἶδον Μαραθῶνάδε βαδίζοντα and οὐκ ἄν γ’ ἐράμενος τὸν ἐκείνου ἐλλέβορον.In Homer we find short vowels lengthened by position, but, whereas Homer uses the licence sparingly, Eucleides raised a laugh by overdoing it and writing in parody such hexameters as those here quoted. A modern parallel may illustrate this. The poet Stephen Phillips employed to excess the licence whihc allows a clash between the natural accent and the metrical ictus, and Mr. Owen Seaman, for the express purpose of raising a laugh, parodied the trick by carrying it to further excess and wrote in blank verse, She a milliner was and her brothers Dynamiters.
10
Now to make an obtrusive use of this licence is ridiculous;
11
but moderation is a requisite common to all kinds of writing. The same effect could be got by using metaphors and rare words and the rest unsuitably for the express purpose of raising a laugh.
12
What a difference is made by the proper use of such licence may be seen in epic poetry, if you substitute in the verse the ordinary forms.
