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

I did not wish to impose a character on Latin comedies other than that of the Greek ones; at the same time, I was persuaded that those macrons were the reason why very many scholars felt wrongly1 For there are those today (believe it, posterity!) who seriously affirm that the power of the metric ictus was so great that in a Plautine verse (though not in the daily speech of the Plautine age) it could happen that amĭca became from amīca (Stichus 700), abĭre from abīre (Trinummis 983), venĭre from venīre (Truculentus 504), duŏbus from duōbus (Casina 1011, Miles Gloriosus 290), deŏrum, deārum, duŏrum from deōrum, deārum, duōrum (Miles Gloriosus 736, Pseudolus 5), eămus from eāmus (Menæchmi 387), diĕbus from diēbus (Poenulus 1207). I am ashamed to bring forward more. For wherever a short syllable appears in a Plautine verse, they seem to believe that Plautus could have 'placed that syllable under the metric ictus' (for that is how they are accustomed to speak) so that the following syllable would become short from long. See what I have written elsewhere (Berl. Phil. Woch. 22, 842) about this prosodia quam pérōdit Musa, inámœna, pérhŏrrida, ínŭtili. about the Plautine metric ictus. I hesitated all the less to discard those troublesome macrons from this edition and to use them only for indicating difficulties (I do not say corruptions) in the text,2 Whence you also have this advantage: that you can easily understand toward what the conjectures of scholars mentioned in the annotation are directed. because I seemed to myself to have explained the more difficult meters sufficiently clearly through the very extensive Schemata of Meters added at the end of both volumes.

That brought more doubt: by what right I might claim a place for a new edition of the plays of Plautus. For...