Metamorphoses V:36 Scansion of Phineus

 

cinefactus

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pectora | rūpis|set, nisi |post alt|āria |Phineus

L&S has the i in Phīneus marked as long, which would seem to make eus a single short syllable. Is that right?
That would fit with line 8

Prīmus in| hīs Phī|neus, bel|lī temer|ārius |auctor,

I have always pronounced it as two short syllables.
 
 

cinefactus

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Thanks. Does that apply to all -eus endings or is it because it is a Greek word?
What about words like aureus, araneus, arboreus?
 
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Thanks. Does that apply to all -eus endings or is it because it is a Greek word?
What about words like aureus, araneus, arboreus?
No, it only happens with proper names of Greek origin. English somehow pronounces the -eus as two syllables in names like Odysseus, Pentheus, Theseus, Phineus etc. I'm not sure why it's done that way ... German does it with a single syllable (an /oi/ sound for the eu)

Note that the syllable count changes in different inflections. While a word like Pentheus is disyllabic, the accusative Penthea is trisyllabic.

Anyway, in adjectives like aureus or arboreus, the -eus always consists of two syllables. I'd be surprised if you found any exceptions.
 

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I thought I remembered an instance of aureus scanning as two syllables in Ovid. I made a PHI search and found it.
 
 

cinefactus

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Every time I think I have plumbed the depths of my ignorance, I find I am wrong ;)

In Phineus I presume you would pronounce it as the ευ diphthong, but what about the aureus example?
 

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I'm actually not sure whether it would be like the diphthong eu or if it would rather be that the e sounded kind of like a consonantal i, but in an e way. Instinctively, I'd go for the latter, but I can't swear it's correct.
 
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German does it with a single syllable (an /oi/ sound for the eu)
Does it really? Though I've read German articles about classical matters, I'm racking my brains to remember an occasion when I've actually heard someone talk about the subject in that language. I feel sure that if they had, this would have stuck in my mind as a strange thing, much as I felt when I heard someone pronounce 'Jazz' as though it were a German word for the first time. Or, for that matter, 'Raider'.
 
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