Editing Hecate (section)

===Older English pronunciation and spelling===
In [[Early Modern English]], the name was also pronounced disyllabically (as {{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|ɛ|k|.|ɪ|t}}) and sometimes spelled ''Hecat''. It remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final ''e'', well into the 19th century.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.oed.com/dictionary/hecate_n?tab=factsheet#1939829|title= Hecat |date= 1898 |website=Oxford English Dictionary |access-date= June 21, 2024}}</ref>

The spelling ''Hecat'' is due to [[Arthur Golding]]'s 1567 translation of [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses]]'',<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Arthur Golding |last=Golding |first=Arthur |year=1567 |section-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=asGFKAUTQC8C&pg=PA243 |title-link=Metamorphoses |title=Ovid's Metamorphoses |publisher=Read Books |section=Book Seven |isbn=9781406792416 }}</ref> and this spelling without the final E later appears in plays of the [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]]-[[Jacobean era|Jacobean]] period.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Christopher Marlowe |author=Marlowe, Christopher |date=c. 1603 |orig-date=first published 1604; performed earlier |title-link=Doctor Faustus (play) |title=Doctor Faustus |via=Google Books |at=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vaNlzzIqXe0C&dq=Hecat&pg=PA42 act&nbsp;III, scene&nbsp;2, line&nbsp;21] |quote=Pluto's blue fire and Hecat's tree}}<br />{{cite book |author-link=William Shakespeare |author=Shakespeare, William |date=c. 1595 |orig-date={{circa|1594–1596}} |title=[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]] |at=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ey2gnY51jmoC&dq=%22By+the+triple+Hecat%27s+team%22&pg=PT195 act&nbsp;V, scene&nbsp;1, line&nbsp;384] |quote=By the triple Hecat's team}}<br />{{cite book |author=Shakespeare, William |author-link=William Shakespeare |date=c. 1605 |orig-date={{circa|1603–1607}} |title=[[Macbeth]] |at=[http://www.playshakespeare.com/macbeth/scenes/257-act-iii-scene-5 act&nbsp;III, scene&nbsp;5, line&nbsp;1] |quote=Why, how now, Hecat!}}<br />{{cite book |author-link=Ben Jonson |author=Jonson, Ben |orig-year=c. 1637 |year=1641 |section-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XcLAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22our+dame+Hecat%22&pg=PA144 |title=The Sad Shepherd |section=act&nbsp;II, scene&nbsp;3, line&nbsp;668 |quote=our dame Hecat}}</ref>
[[Webster's Dictionary]] of 1866 particularly credits the influence of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name.<ref>{{cite book |last=Webster |first=Noah |year=1866 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gmwIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PT9 |title=A Dictionary of the English Language |edition=10th |quote=Rules for pronouncing the vowels of Greek and Latin proper names", p.&nbsp;9:&nbsp;"''Hecate'' ..., pronounced in three syllables when in Latin, and in the same number in the Greek word ''Ἑκάτη''; in English is universally contracted into two, by sinking the final ''e''. Shakespeare seems to have begun, as he has now confirmed, this pronunciation, by so adapting the word in Macbeth&nbsp;...&nbsp;. And the play-going world, who form no small portion of what is called the better sort of people, have followed the actors in this world, and the rest of the world have followed them.}}<br />{{cite book |title=[[Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable]] |year=1894 |section-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6aElzaWwzkQC&dq=Hecate&pg=RA1-PA593 |section=Hec'ate |quote=3&nbsp;syl. in Greek, 2 in Eng.}}</ref>