book 1 does not elide the vowel of the preceding τε. Other examples of this remembered sound are the word καλός, scanned with a long first syllable (despite having a short α), and the fact that the word άναξ in line 7 of Il. The sound is gone, but its effect of lengthening the syllable is not. ![]() The poet is remembering a sound that had vanished from the dialect of Greek which he was speaking (Old Ionic). The reason you are right is a historical one. ![]() It doesn't have a long vowel or diphthong, and it isn't followed by two (or more) consonants. The reason I picked out εὐρυπυ λὲς Ἄϊδος is that you instinctively (and correctly!) marked λὲς as a long syllable even though it isn't. The following vowel (the υ in ὕπο) in effect shortens the preceding diphthong (the -ει in τείχ ει), a process known as 'correption'. ![]() What complicates this line is an instance of a diphthong, which would ordinarily be long, followed by a short vowel (τείχ ει ὕπο). it it is followed by two or more consonants (e.g. εὐ ηφενέ ων, where the rouge is a diphthong and the bold is a long vowel)Ģ. if it contains a long vowel or diphthong (e.g. The two basic rules that determine a long syllable are:ġ. When we scan poetry, we're looking at the syllables as they are read, not at the individual morpheme ('word') boundaries, to determine length. Second, I address important ideas shared by Latin love poetry and pop music, particularly as connected to a love affair. Οὐδέ μέ πω μίσ γεσθαι ὑ πὲρ ποτα μοῖο ἐ ῶσιν, Latin.4 First, I discuss the rhythm of two Latin meters (elegiac couplets and dactylic hexameter) with musical examples to stress the beat. (By the way, is there always a "good" solution? Or are there cases when it's up to the taste and artistic interpretation?) The colored-boldened syllables show the beginning of a foot. Are there mistakes? The red parts seem to be problematic. I was unable to find a version of the Greek Iliad that was worked out. :)įor the metrical symbols code block, Brill has this fine list.I'm practicing dactylic hexameters. So basically that's what that sentence from Wikipedia means. It is for you we speak, ‖ not for ourselves: It's just when you pause while reciting a verse, often (though not always) for punctuation: In modern English poetry, the caesura is much, much easier to understand. Spargens humida mella soporiferumque papaver In the following line, the caesura is in the third foot and is weak: So in the line above, the caesura is strong. The other thing to know about caesuras is that they're called strong when they follow a long syllable and weak when they follow a short syllable. ![]() There are various rules (some of them slippery, some of them disputed) for whether the principal caesura usually goes in the third or fourth foot. In this verse it comes in the third foot: However, usually in Latin poetry when people talk about the caesura, they mean what's called the principal caesura, which comes either in the third or fourth foot. If, as Wikipedia suggests, a caesura occurs when a word ending comes during a foot rather than at the end of one, then there are caesuras (marked ‖) in every foot of this line: If you separate each foot, you come up with this: Take the first line of the Æneid:Īrma virumque cano, Troiæ qui primus ab oris A line of dactylic hexameter is made up of six dactyls (a long syllable followed by two short syllables, marked –⏖), some of which can be replaced with spondees (two long syllables, marked – –). The basic unit of Latin poetry is the foot: iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, amphibrach. Ah, the joys of scansion! My understanding of the subject is solid but very basic, so I'll give you what I know, in the hope that somebody else can elaborate.
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