The Poems and Fragments of Catullus

There is another circumstance which tends to make modern rules of prosody necessarily negative. Quantity, in English revivals of ancient metre, depends not only on position, but on accent. But accent varies greatly in different words; _heavy level ever cometh any_, have the same accent as _empty evil either boometh penny_; but the first syllable in the former set of words is lighter than in the latter. Hence, though accented, they may, on occasion, be considered and used as short; as, on the same principle, _dolorous stratagem echoeth family_, usually dactyls, may, on occasion,