§ =22. The structure of the hemistich in the normal alliterative line.= The normal hemistich consists of four, seldom of five members[63] (_Glieder_), two of which are strongly accented (arses), the others unaccented or less strongly accented (theses). Each arsis is formed, as a rule, of a long accented syllable (-), but the second part of a compound, and (less frequently) the second syllable with a secondary accent of a trisyllabic or disyllabic word, is allowed to stand as an arsis. By resolution a long accented syllable may be replaced by two short syllables, the first of which is accented. This is denoted by the symbol ⏑́ ×. The less strongly accented members of the hemistich fall into two classes according as they are unaccented or have the secondary accent. This division depends ultimately on the logical or etymological importance of the syllables. Unaccented syllables (marked in Sievers's notation by ×) whether long or short by etymology, are mostly inflexional endings, formative elements, or proclitic and enclitic words. Secondarily accented verse-members, mostly monosyllabic and long (denoted by ×̀, and occasionally, when short, by ⏑̀), are root-syllables in the second part of compounds, long second syllables of trisyllabic words whose root-syllable is long, and other syllables where in ordinary speech the presence of a secondary accent is unmistakable. The rhythmical value of these syllables with secondary accent is not always the same. When they stand in a foot or measure of two members and are preceded by an accented syllable they count as simply unaccented, and the foot is practically identical with the normal type represented by the notation –́ × (as in the hemistich _wī́sra wórda_), but these half-accented syllables may be called _heavy_ theses, and the feet which contain them may be denoted by the formula –́ ×̀, as in _wī́sfæ̀st wórdum_ (–́ ×̀ | –́ ×). A hemistich like the last is called by Sievers strengthened (_gesteigert_), or if it has two heavy unaccented syllables in both feet, doubly strengthened, as in the section _gū́ðrìnc góldwlànc_ (–́ ×̀ | –́ ×̀). In these examples the occurrence of a heavy unaccented syllable is permissible but not necessary; but in feet or measures of three members they are obligatory, being required as an intermediate degree between the arsis and thesis, or strongly accented and unaccented member, as in _þégn Hrṓðgā́res_ (–́| –́ × ×̀), or _fýrst fórð gewà̄t_ (–́ | –́ × ×̀), or _hḗalǣ̀rna mǣ́st_ (–́× ×̀ | –́). In these cases Sievers gives the verse-member with this secondary accent the character of a subordinate arsis, or beat (_Nebenhebung_). But it is better, in view of the strongly marked two-beat swing of the hemistich, to look on such members with a secondary accent as having only the rhythmical value of unaccented syllables, and to call them _theses_ with a slight accent. The two-beat rhythm of the hemistich is its main characteristic, for though the two beats are not always