Probably to give the pronominal adjective greater emphasis. Y huyó su | alma a la mansión dichosa (11) Probably to avoid two successive stresses, though possibly there may be dieresis in mansión. Don Félix, a buena | hora (8) Again to avoid stress-shift under the rhythmic stress. ¡El as! ¡el as! aquí está (8) Y si Dios aquí os envia (8) In these two examples instead of hiatus there is synalepha with stress-shift, but we have to do with case 2 of synalepha, not case 3. Que un alma, una vida, | es (8) Cuando | hacia él fatídica figura (11) Y el otro ¡Dios santo! y el otro era | él! (12) ¡Villano! mas esto | es (8) En cada | hijo a contemplar un rey (11) In some instances hiatus seems to occur for no other reason than to preserve the verse-measure: Resonando cual lúgubre | eco (10) Y palacios de | oro y de cristal (11) ¡Y tú feliz, que | hallaste en la muerte (11) In general hiatus is most likely to occur before the principal rhythmic stress in a verse; that is, before the final stress. RHYTHM, RHYTHMIC STRESS, THE CAESURAL PAUSE In English poetry the foot, rather than the syllable, is the unit. The number of feet to a verse is fixed, but the number of syllables varies. In Spanish poetry the number of syllables to a verse is fixed, subject only to the laws of syllable-counting