118. The Vaitaliya is also regulated by quantity, not by fixed feet : it requires that the first and third lines shall consist of feet equal to fourteen shorts, while the second and fourth have sixteen. The last foot is usually an iambic preceded by a cretic : or it ends in a dactyl and spondee, or, "by adding one long syllable, in a cretic and bacchins."x[1]
£uo7^ r5S'^o Q £'£5'&7~<$o Fourteen shorts.
SsSdS33^evg©'0r*9~§8btfo Sixteen
«-» i \j i «-» C5jo^s5o-c<s^j"s ^tr'i^o Fourteen
«-» i w i y S"S^'tr>Oa5oo^oo'i5^~c1 Sixteen
Other varieties of the same metre have sixteen shorts in the first line while the second equals eighteen, and each half line closes with (RY) a cretic and bacchic. Or each line equals sixteen shorts, or the first line has thirteen and the second eleven: the closing syllable beins short.
Some writers on Prosody have also explained various species of prose; but although many Sanscrit and Telugu poems contain passages written in melodious prose, the ear alone is the guide, and no precise rules can be laid down for what is a mere matter of taste.
- ↑ x Colebrooke—in whom further refinements are described: also in Yates. I omit lereral details which will be found in these authors, as I limit myself to clearly explaining such metres only, as are in general use: if the student knows these, he will require no assistance is. the rest.
