“I’m full of woes, I have no room for more,”[1]

the words are quite common, but they are made sublime by being cast in a
fine mould. By changing their position you will see that the poetical
quality of Euripides depends more on his arrangement than on his
thoughts.

[Footnote 1: _H. F._ 1245.]

4
Compare his lines on Dirce dragged by the bull--

“Whatever crossed his path,
Caught in his victim’s form, he seized, and dragging
Oak, woman, rock, now here, now there, he flies.”[2]

The circumstance is noble in itself, but it gains in vigour because the
language is disposed so as not to hurry the movement, not running, as it
were, on wheels, because there is a distinct stress on each word, and
the time is delayed, advancing slowly to a pitch of stately sublimity.

[Footnote 2: _Antiope_ (Nauck, 222).]


XLI

Nothing so much degrades the tone of a style as an effeminate and
hurried movement in the language, such as is produced by pyrrhics and
trochees and dichorees falling in time together into a regular dance
measure. Such abuse of rhythm is sure to savour of coxcombry and petty