James Turney Allen's First Year of Greek Lesson II

Greek Learning Greek
1

I’ve been puzzling over this 1 1/2 lines of Menander.

Εἰρήνη γεωργὸν κἀν πέτραις
τρέϕει καλῶς· πόλεμος δὲ κἀν πεδίῳ κακῶς·

According to the notes, the meter follows this:
|>|U_|>|U
U_|U_|UU_|U_|UU_|U_

https://archive.org/details/firstyearofgreek00alle/page/2/mode/2up?view=theater

What I don’t understand is how the 3rd syllable of πόλεμος is supposed to be long. Could anyone explain it?
It’s also not clear why κἀν has a breathing mark.

Thanks.

2

The third syllable of πόλεμος is long (heavy) because the vowel, though short, is followed by two consonants: πόλεμος δὲ. The word break doesn’t affect this. The prosody is based on the stream of syllables without regard to word breaks.

κἀν is crasis for καὶ ἐν, “even in.”

3

Multas gratias!