The Comedies of Plautus, Vol. I (T. Macci Plauti Comoediae)

mē quidem and měquidem. Moreover, through such spellings, I have made the meter easier to recognize: eru' noster1 That is indeed sometimes more convenient than more true. For in such a verse (Capt. 163): opŭs Túrdetanis, ópŭst Ficedulénsibus, who will dare to affirm that the prosody of the former and the latter disyllable existed by a different principle? Who [will dare to affirm that] the verse Capt. 826 begins with a spondee? for erŭs noster, tuo' dominus for tuŏs dominus, nemp' and perq' for nempe and perque when pronounced monosyllabically;2 I have, however, kept the customary spelling in audin for audisne and, before a consonant, ac for atque, nec for neque, and similar ones. I wrote the verb in' (for isne), and the preposition in. and with macrons placed above, I indicated the meter whenever it was obscure, as in this verse (Rudens 459):

(where with the macron I indicated that the verse begins with an anapaest, not an iambus), for the second syllable of such words3 If, however, the diversity of pronunciation was heard either never or rarely, there was no reason why I should use macrons, as in these: volŭptas mea, enĭm (vero), satĭn (tutus), volŏ scire, apŭd (templum), Philippus (aureus). For just as in Martial's time smaragdus had a short second syllable in daily speech, so in the Plautine age [did] Philippus, which abbreviation undoubtedly arose from the accent of the first syllable (σμάραγδος, Φίλιππος). It must also be warned that I have generally been unwilling to apply macrons where doubt existed or seemed capable of existing, e.g., in Amph. 949, which verse, in my judgment, ought to be scanned thus: ego istúc curabo. | éuocate huc Sósiam (cf. Cas. 781 et 786). in daily speech was accustomed to be heard now long (volūptatem), now short (volŭptatem); or in a verse with hiatus,4 Scholars disagree about Plautine hiatus as they do about nothing else. For in the verse mentioned above, although everyone recognizes the former hiatus, not everyone recognizes the latter. Indeed, I have fully explained elsewhere what I think ('Journ. Phil.' 27, 200). Know, therefore, that in the text of this edition I indicate with applied macrons the hiatus that is, in my judgment, legitimate, but with a straight line a hiatus that is either entirely false or suspect. as Cas. 724 (anapaestic octonarius):

Assisted by these aids to understanding the meter, you will easily suffer, kind reader, that in this edition I have not indicated the so-called metric ictus by the continuous use of macrons.