Note 405 — Chapter III · QUINTILIAN.

Εἷς δύο τρεῖσ· ὁ δὲ δὴ τέταρτος ἡμῶν ὧ φίλε. The first words to δὴ make the beginning of a hexameter or a penthemimer elegiac, the whole, omitting Εἷς, a very “lolloping” iambic trimeter, while ὁ to ἡμῶν is an Anacreontic. Plato would certainly have retorted that where so many metres are possible no one can arise distinctly, and therefore disagreeably, to the ear.