Correption

In Latin and Greek poetry, correption is the shortening of a long vowel at the end of one word before a short vowel at the beginning of the next. Vowels next to each other in neighboring words are in hiatus.

Homer uses correption in dactylic hexameter:

• Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
  πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε·
  — 1.2

• Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full
  many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
  — translation by A.T. Murray

Here the sequence η ε in bold must be pronounced as ε ε to preserve the long—short—short syllable weight sequence of a dactyl. Thus, the scansion of the second line is thus:

πλαγχ θε, ε | πει Τροι | ης ι ε | ρον πτο λι | εθ ρο νε | περ σε

See also

• Metaplasm
• Hiatus