Note 865 — Chapter VI · METRE AND RHYTHM IN GREEK TRAGEDY

Iambics were adopted because nearer to the rhythm of everyday speech. It has been held, for instance by Dr. J. H. H. Schmidt, that iambics are nothing but trochaics with “anacrusis” (for this term see below, p. 342). So near is the iambic metre to ordinary talk that one now and again finds accidental “lines” in prose. Thus Demosthenes (Olynth., I, 5) writes δῆλον γάρ ἐστι τοῖς Ὀλυνθίοις ὅτι.... George Eliot, early in Middlemarch, actually produces two consecutive “lines”: “Obliged to get my coals by stratagem, and pray to heaven for my salad-oil”.