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Odyssey A 56 goes thus:
αἰεὶ δὲ μαλακοῖσι καὶ αἱμυλίοισι λόγοισιν
I find it difficult to scan this verse. The word μᾰλᾰκός has two short syllables, which must be preceded by a long one; and yet δὲ cannot possibly be long. Or can it?
In addition, the beginning of the verse, αἰεὶ, must be two long syllables, which must be followed by a long syllable, and yet it is δὲ that follows.
There is a little-known rule of epic scansion in which, optionally, a word-initial sonorant (the nasals μ ν and the liquids ρ λ) may cause a preceding short vowel to scan long. Here's another example, Odyssey 18.399:
μνηστῆρες δ᾽ ὁμάδησαν ἀνὰ μέγαρα σκιόεντα
-- where the second syllable of ἀνά scans long because of the following μ-.
The explanation for this seems to be that some such words once began with an additional s- (sm- etc.), which was later lost. But the phenomenon is not limited to words that historically had s- (and those that did do not consistently show it), so it seems to have been expanded into a license to lengthen certain syllables when metrically necessary.
