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, become tribrachs. But how lay down any positive rule in matter necessarily so fluctuating? We cannot. All we can do is to refuse admission as short syllables to any heavier accented syllable. Here, then, much must be left to individual discretion. My translation of the Attis will best show my own feeling in the matter. But I am fully aware that in this respect I have fallen far short of consistency. I have made _any_ sometimes short, more often long; _to_, usually short, is lengthened in lxi. 26, lxvii. 19, lxviii. 143; _with_ is similarly long, though not followed by a consonant, in lxi. 36; _given_ is long in xxviii. 7, short in xi. 17, lxiv. 213; _are_ is short in lxvii. 14; and more generally many syllables allowed to pass for short in the Attis are elsewhere long. Nor have I scrupled to forsake the ancient quantity in proper names; following Heyse, I have made the first syllable of _Verona_ short in xxxv. 3, lxvii. 34, although it retains its proper quantity in lxviii. 27. Again, _Pheneos_ is a dactyl in lxviii. 111, while _Satrachus_ is an anapaest in xcv. 5. In many of these instances I have acted consciously; if the writers of Greece and Rome allowed many syllables to be doubtful, and almost as a principle avoid perfect uniformity in the quantity of proper names, a greater freedom may not unfairly be claimed by their modern imitators. If Catullus could write _Pharsăliam coeunt, Pharsălia regna frequentant_, similar license may surely be extended to me. I believe, indeed, that nothing in my translation is as violent as the double quantity just mentioned in Catullus; but if there is, I would remind my readers of Goethe's answer to the boy who told him he had been guilty of a hexameter with seven feet, and applying the remark to any seeming irregularities in my own translation would say, _Lass die Bestie stehen_.