[85]
Indeed, since strict law
allows a vowel to be long or short, as the case may
be, when it stands alone, no less than when one or
[p. 555]
more consonants precede it, there can be no doubt,
when it comes to the measuring of feet, that a short
syllable, followed by another which is either long
or short, but is preceded by two consonants, is
lengthened, as for example in the phrase agrestem
tenui musam.1
1 Ecl. i. 2. But Virgil wrote silvestrem.
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