Accent placement and prosody with prepositions before place and personal names; whether to reverse or make the preposition orthotone to show local or emphatic meaning; rule for prepositions between two names (main and epithet) attaching to the whole phrase.
(α 247)· εἰ μὲν πρὸς τὴν Ἰθάκην συντάττοις τὴν κατά, ἵνα τοπικὴν δηλώσῃς σχέσιν κατὰ Ἰθάκην, ἀναστρέψεις τὴν πρόθεσιν· εἰ δὲ πρὸς τὸ κοιρανέουσιν, ἵνα πλείονα ἔμφασιν δηλώσῃς τῆς τῶν μνηστήρων ἐπικρατείας, ὅπερ καὶ μᾶλλον δοκεῖ, ὀρθοτονήσεις τὴν πρόθεσιν. τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐν τῷ «εὗρε δὲ Πατρόκλῳ περικείμενον» (Τ 4)· εἰ γὰρ περὶ τῷ Πατρόκλῳ κείμενον, καὶ ἀναστραφήσεται ὁ τόνος· εἰ δὲ τῷ Πατρόκλῳ περικείμενον, ἵνα ᾖ οἷον περικεχυμένον αὐτῷ, ὀρθοτονηθήσεται, ἔμφασιν γὰρ πλείονα δηλοῖ. Εἰ δὲ μεταξὺ πέσῃ δύο ὀνομάτων ἡ πρόθεσις, τοῦ μὲν κυρίου ὄντος, τοῦ δὲ προσηγορικοῦ, ἢ ἐπιθετικοῦ καὶ προσηγορικοῦ, ἐν πᾶσι τούτοις ἀναστρέφειν δεῖ τὴν πρόθεσιν, ἵνα τῆς ὅλης συντάξεως προηγήσηται· «ποταμοῦ ἄπο Σελλήεντος» (Μ 97) ἀπὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ. «Ξάνθῳ
(α 247): If you construe κατά with Ἰθάκην, in order to indicate a local relation, κατὰ Ἰθάκην, you will invert the preposition; but if with κοιρανέουσιν, in order to indicate a greater emphasis of the suitors’ domination—which indeed seems more likely—you will accent the preposition in its normal position. The same also in «εὗρε δὲ Πατρόκλῳ περικείμενον» (Τ 4): for if it is ‘lying about Patroclus’, the accent will be inverted; but if ‘lying around Patroclus’, so that it is as it were ‘poured around him’, it will be accented in its normal position, for it indicates greater emphasis. But if the preposition falls between two nouns, one being a proper name and the other an appellative, or an adjective and an appellative, in all such cases one must invert the preposition, so that it may take precedence in the whole construction: «ποταμοῦ ἄπο Σελλήεντος» (Μ 97), ‘from the river Selleeis’. «Ξάνθῳ