HELPS TO THE READING CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY RICHARDSON NEX C HELPS TO THE READING OF CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY BY LEON JOSIAH EICHARDSON Cantantes licet usque minus via laedit eamus GINN & COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1907, nv LEON JOSIAH RICHARDSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 77.1 GINN & COMPANY PRO- PRIETORS . BOSTON U.S.A. And when we have learned by long familiarity to read between the lines, to apportion the emphasis, to reproduce, it may be, in imagination some shadow of that "marvelous witchery" with which, as tradition tells us, Vergil's own reading of his poems brought out their beauty, we shall be surprised at the amount of self -revelation discernible beneath the calm of his impersonal song. F. W. H. MYERS. 2026862 That the vox viva has a vital part to play in the study of language, seems to call for little argument. The one is closely bound up in the other. In numberless ways sound is accommodated to sense ; and this holds true alike of ancient and modern tongues. Moreover, the literatures of the Greeks and Eomans have always been regarded as preeminently human, hence called the "humanities," which accords with the fact that they are permeated with ideas not merely well suited to vocal expression, but frequently such as can be fully conveyed only by means of the liv- ing voice. In discussing the style of poets, Cicero went so far as to say " Nonnulli eorum voluptati vocibus magis quam rebus inserviunt" (Orator, xx, 68). The following pages concern the student of the Roman poets, especially Vergil and Ovid. They ami to promote modes of study that shall react favorably upon the mother tongue, that shall yield good training, reasonable command of the Latin language, and some well-founded conceptions of antiquity. They aim to make it clear that reading (as opposed to the " puzzling out " method of study) furnishes at all stages the true key to sense, and that without such reading one will fail to enter into the full comprehen- sion, as well as the highest enjoyment, of the poetry. The principles governing Latin metrical composition in the Augustan age will be briefly set forth. For a full vi PREFACE treatment of the subject the student should consult such authorities as Sievers, Corssen, Lindsay, Christ, and Gle- ditsch. A further comparison between classical aiid English versification may be found hi the works of Mayor, Omond, and Saintsbury. Some of the illustrative material used in this book lias been drawn from W. Christ, Die Metrik fyr Griechen und Homer] H. W. Johnston, Metrical Licen&s of Vergil] the Allen and Greenough, Hale and Buck, pildersleeve and Lodge, and Lane Latin grammars ; the Century and Standard dictionaries ; and an article by the author " On the Form of Horace's Lesser Asclepiads," American Journal of Phi- lology, xxii, 283. The words Vergil, rime, and meter, when spelled otherwise in quoted passages, have been brought into line with the usage followed in this book. For aid and suggestion acknowledgment is made to Professor Isaac Flagg, Professor William A. Merrill, Pro- fessor Edward B. Clapp, and Pro!.- jor Henry W. Prescott. Special thanks are due the Reader of Messrs. Ginn and Company, whose cooperation has added much to whatever merit this little volume may possess. L. ,T. R. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY, December, 1906 CONTENTS PART I 1 PAGE INTRODUCTORY TOHE STUDY OF LATIN POETRY . . 1 RHYTHM AS CONCERNED IN THE POET'S ART ... 4 The Nature ^f Rhythm 4 The Interlacing Series in a Poetic Rhythm ... 7 Rhythm and Meter 8 Kinds of Rhythm 9 Auxiliary Factors 10 Relation of Rhythm to Ideas .19 Direct and Indirect Ways of Conveying Thought . 19 Rhythm an Example of the Latter 19 RHYTHMICAL ELEMENTS 22 Syllables 22 Feet 44 Cola 46 Verses 47 Groups of Verses 50 PART II THE DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER . . .51 PRACTICAL HINTS ON READING LATIN POETRY ... 62 INDEX 65 vii THE READING OF CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES INTRODUCTORY TO THE STUDY OF LATIN POETRY Almost every thing we do in our daily lives involves ways and methods that are not original but come to us as the accumulated result of a long line of human expe- rience. And so to understand fully any activity one must view it historically, one must follow it through the various stages of its development. Speaking, reading, and writing are no exceptions to this rule. And since the three enter so largely into the discipline of the mind, the questions are constantly arising : What literatures should we study ? How can the ancient classics be treated to the best advantage ? In taking up Greek or Latin, young people are set to learning forms, parsing, translating, and the like. Such exercises have their place, and indeed are important, pro- vided they be looked upon as a means to an end. Too often, however, they are allowed to become ends in them- selves, with the result that the student does not learn to read in the true sense of the term. In this field, as else- where, a great deal depends upon beginning rightly. l 2 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY The Latin student, already grounded in simple prose and now approaching the poets, should hear Latin poetry read in large masses by a reader competent to give fair enunciation and expression; and then, while the sounds are still ringing in his ears, he should read for himself. The more he reads aloud the better. In the early stairs of practice he can not be expected to understand at once all he hears, nor to know much about the structure of the verse. The main thing at this period is to form riulit habits, especially the habit of gathering the sense from the page in a normal way not by rearranging the words, but by taking them into the mind through the genuine process of "straight-ahead" reading. If .he perseveres in hearing, reading aloud, and we may add writing, he will soon begin to take a Roman's attitude toward the literature; more and more he will read with ease and pleasure, and finally the poetry will reveal its true mean- ing and beauty. Professor Shorey's remark on the part played by (In- voice in the study of Horace's Odes may be applied widely : ^Esthetic criticism of Horace's exquisite metrical art can If addressed only to those who read him aloud precisely as they read English poetry. Such students will observe for themselves in their favorite passages the reenforcement of the leading thought by the emphasis of the rhythm, the symmetrical reon>ioiis and nice interlockings of words and phrases, the dainty Imt not obtrusive alliteration, the real or fancied adaptation of sound to sense in softly musical, splendidly sonorous, or pirluiv^piely descriptive lines. This kind of critic-ism may easily pass into the fantastic. It is better suited to the living \oi, . than to cold print. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 3 To read Latin poetry in this spirit is not a simple matter. Not only must one make the words embody the properties that would belong to them in prose correct syllabic form, quality and quantity of sound, accent, intonation, and logical grouping but one must also utter the words with a feeling for the rhythmical series which they are intended to suggest, and here and there with regard to still subtler effects of sound. For the complete impression that the poet seeks to convey results from an interplay among all these elements. If it is worth while to study ancient literature at all, it is certainly worth while to enter as fully as possible into its spirit, to lay hold on its store of thought and feeling. Niebuhr puts the matter well in his Letter to a Young Philologist : Do not read [ancient authors] in order to make aesthetic reflections upon them, but in order to drink in their spirit, and to fill your soul with their thoughts. in order to gain by the reading what you would have gained by reverently listen- ing to the discourses of great men. This is the philology that does the soul good ; and learned investigations, even when we get so far as to be able to make them, always occupy an inferior place. Even if we can explain the most difficult passages at sight, all this is nothing, and mere sleight of hand, if we do not acquire the wisdom and spiritual energy of the great men of antiquity, think and feel like them. Professor Corson says : * A true poem is a piece of articulate music which may require to be long practiced upon by the voice before all its possible significance and effectiveness be realized. . . . Reading must sup- ply all the deficiencies of written or printed language. It must 1 The Voice and Spiritual Education, pages 29 and 63. 4 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY give life to the letter. How comparatively little is addressed to the eye, in print or manuscript, of what has to be addressed to the ear by a reader ! There are no indications of tone, quality of voice, inflection, pitch, time, or any other of the vocal functions demanded for a full intellectual and spiritual interpretation. A poem is not truly a poem until it is voiced by an accomplished reader who has adequately assimilated it in whom it has, to some extent, been born again, according to his individual spiritual constitution and experiences. In short, one must first understand in order to read well. And so it comes about that the most satisfactory test of a person's mastery over a piece of literature, whether poetry or prose, is his ability to read it aloud. RHYTHM AS CONCERNED IN THE POET'S ART THE NATURE OF RHYTHM What is the nature of rhythm as an element in poetry ? Iii seeking to answer this question one should bear in mind that poetic rhythm is only a specialized form of sometliing that may be met with on every hand. In its widest sense that is, as conditioned by " periodicity, rise and fall, recurrence of maxima and minima " rhythm is an inseparable property of motion. And so, whether we regard a storm, the flight of a bird, or every- day speech, rhythm is never absent. This wide applica- tion of the word is in keeping witli its derivation from pvOfjids, whose meaning is measured motion and whose root signifies flow. Rhythm is instinctive in man and a necessary part of his nature. It pervades all his actions, especially those involving emotion. Curiously enough GENERAL PRINCIPLES 5 rhythm has an important effect on memory. That is to say, one is more likely to remember an utterance that is rhythmical than one that is unrhythmical. It therefore comes about through no mere chance that proverbs and other sayings handed down from age to age are almost invariably cast in a highly rhythmical form. Hence, too, the antiquity of poetry ; its rhythmical character rendered transmission by memory possible before the invention of writing. In the course of time man has developed certain modes of activity called the arts, three of which are based on rhythm: namely, dance, music, and poetry. Here only such rhythm is admitted as appeals readily to the human mind and serves to rouse or satisfy emotion. Our knowledge of rhythm as thus employed is derived in no small degree from the Greeks. Plato considered it to be measured motion (77 rrjs Kivrjeew raf i had the skill, if we may use a musical figure, to set his lan- guage simultaneously to several series of different periods or amplitudes. RHYTHM AND METER We hear the expressions " the rhythm of a poem " and "the meter of a poem." What then is the distinction between rhythm and meter? Ehythm is a widely inclu- sive term, as appears in the foregoing discussion. Meter, however, is limited to the field of language (and music), where it denotes rhythm, not in all its rich detail, but to the extent of its main plan, namely, those rhythmic relations that conform to a system of fixed measures. This measuring process is practicable only when the divi- sions recur regularly and the included sounds are arranged according to some pattern or definite plan, as is the case in poetry. The description of specimen series, therefore, gives one an idea of the rhythm throughout a whole com- position. In prose, while there is rhythm, the divisions are too variable, both in duration and structure, to be treated in this manner: hence the canon that prose should embody a certain rhythm or harmonious movement, but one not so pre- cise as to give the effect of meter. Rhythm in one form or another belongs to prose and poetry, meter to poetry alone. The distinction between these terms is further illus- trated in the following remarks of C. S. Calverley ( Jr; //*, page 498 ff.) : What appears to me to be the almost universal fallacy of metrical writers is the assumption that when you have got the GENERAL PRINCIPLES 9 scansion of a line you have got its rhythm. . . . Meter ... is, in my view, a sort of framework whose office is to support the verse. It is possible to train a rose or a vine upon a trellis so that, while it adheres firmly, it is still left to follow its own devices and form its own pattern over the laths, which are only seen here and there amongst the leaves and tendrils. It would also be possible to force everv branch and spray into strict conformity with the lines of the frame, so that the outline of its squares should be the only outline visible. The former method seems to me to be the way in which Homer and Vergil, and all poets ancient or modern, . . . have dealt with meter. In other words, meter is not synonymous with poetic rhythm in its whole l range, but rather with the ground form of such rhythm. Meter connotes less than rhythm. The former relates simply to scansion, that is, to the form of a poem as measured by feet, cola, verses, and the like. The latter relates to all factors, even the most subtle and indirect, that produce the flow of sound as organized by the poet. KINDS OF EHYTHM It is customary to divide poetic rhythms into classes on the basis of the constituent elements of the time divi- sions. These divisions in the case of English or German poetry are occupied by syllables whose most notable sound characteristic is that some are more heavily stressed than others. More or less similar is the poetry of many other modern languages. The rhythm, therefore, in these cases belongs to the accentual class, because it is marked to a greater or less extent by accent or stress. On the other 1 rd. yap ^rpa. 6n fibpia TWV pvOn&v ten ipavfpbv. Aristotle, Poet- ics, 4, 6. 10 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY hand, the divisions of Greek or Latin poetry are occupied by syllables whose most notable sound characteristic is that some last a longer time than others. In this case the rhythm belongs to the quantitative class. Cf. ictus, p. 44. Whether accentual or quantitative, the rhythm of poetry is reenforced by certain special effects ; that is to say, certain turns of sound or periods of silence are intro- duced in such a manner and at such points as to signal- ize the rhythmical divisions. These auxiliary factors, as they may be termed, are not all present in every language, nor is it the poet's way to employ many simultaneously. As division succeeds division they are sometimes numer- ous, sometimes few. Those most commonly employed are as follows : 1. Silence. One can not properly read a poem, or sing a song, without observing certain moments of silence, rhythmical conditions requiring (a) rests and (b) pauses, sense conditions requiring (c) stops. a. Not infrequently it serves the poet's purpose to leave a brief portion of the rhythm unoccupied by sound. The resulting silence is termed a rest. This has three characteristics : it occurs within rhythmical divisions (feet) ; its duration is prescribed by the form of these divisions; its bearing on the rhythm is direct. The first line of the following selection contains a rest in each foot | Break, | break, | break, On thy | cold gray j stones, O j Sea I The movement of these verses has been well represented in musical symbols by Mr. William Thomson, The Basis of English Rhythm, page 54. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 11 b. The rhythm of a poein is here and there momen- tarily suspended, giving place to a pause. This has three characteristics: it falls sometimes within, sometimes be- tween, rhythmical divisions ; its duration is not definitely fixed by these divisions, being left to the interpretation of the individual reader or singer; its bearing on the rhythm is indirect. Examples of pauses are indicated by perpendicular lines in verses b, c, and d on page 7. c. Speech naturally falls into phrases, clauses, and sen- tences, in short, into divisions commonly set off from one another by stops. Their location is shown on the printed page for the most part by punctuation. In poetry, no less than in prose, stops are needed to make the language clear and easily intelligible. They help. the meaning without doing violence to the rhythm, just as rests and pauses help the rhythm without doing violence to the meaning. Bests and pauses, being governed by rhythmical laws, recur with much regularity; stops, on the other hand, being governed by rhetorical laws, respond to the widely varying demands of thought. Accordingly, a sense division now coincides, now falls at variance, with a rhythmical division, each gaining something from the other, each being in a degree restrained by the other. This illustrates well how the poet's 'art maintains a nice balance between content and form. If the sense divisions of a poem repeatedly coincide with the rhythmical divisions, the effect in reading is a kind of " fcing-song." Mother Goose abounds in examples : Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye ; Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. 12 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing ; Was not that a dainty dish To set before the king ? The king was in his counting-house, Counting out his money ; The queen was in the parlor, Eating bread and honey ; The maid was in the garden, Hanging out the clothes ; When up came a blackbird, And nipped off her nose. Opposed to this style of composition is the complex form, one wherein the rhythmical divisions do not predominantly correspond with the sense divisions. A good example of this is found in Tennyson's In Memoriam. The poet makes the two correspond often enough to keep the reader con- scious of the type of the rhythm ; but non-correspondence is also present to satisfy the subtle laws of variety and beauty. The following selection may serve as an example : What hope is here for modern rhyme To him, who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshorten M in the tract of time? These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden's locks ; Or when a thousand moons shall wane A man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief, then changed to something else, Sung by a long-forgotten mind. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 13 But what of that ? My darken'd ways Shall ring with music all the same ; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise. 2. Sound Parallelism. Under this head are included rime, assonance, and alliteration. These effects are so arranged by the poet that, among other things, they may help define for the hearer the rhythmical divisions. For example, without the aid of rime one would hardly obtain a true impression of the rhythm of a sonnet, whose verses often close without sense pauses. The hearer could not always be sure where the verses end, and the musical effects would be obscured. Like rime in its relation to rhythm is assonance, with its correspondence of vowels but not of consonants, as in the following example : Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness, Lithe as panther forest-roaming, Long-armed naiad, when she dances, On a stream of ether floating. George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy. The part played by assonance in the evolution of poetic forms has been happily touched upon by Walter Pater in his remarks on the old French songs contained in the thirteenth-century romance Aucassin et Nicolette : The songs themselves are of the simplest kind, not rimed even, but only imperfectly assonant, stanzas of twenty or thirty lines apiece, all ending with a similar vowel sound. And here, as elsewhere in that early poetry, much of the interest lies in the spectacle of the formation of a new artistic sense. A new music is arising, the music of rimed poetry, and in the songs of Aucassin 14 and Nicolette, which seem always on the point of passing into true rime, but which halt somehow, and can never quite take flight, you see people just growing aware of the elements of a new music in their possession, and anticipating how pleasant such music might become. The Renaissance, page 18. Alliteration was used regularly in old Teutonic poetry as a means for pointing the rhythm. Hire robe was ful riche of red scarlet engreyned. Piers Plowman, ii, 15. It occurs to some extent in all poetry, and almost never without some bearing on rhythm. Here are some examples : Some /ump, ah God, of /apis Jazuli, .Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, .Slue as a vein o'er the Madonna's fcreast. Browning, The Bishop Orders his Tomb. Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly, alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed, Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved I Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise ! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise ! GENERAL PRINCIPLES 15 And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. Browning, Abt Vogler. It is instructive to compare the stanzas throughout the whole of this poem and to note that alliteration is intro- duced not haphazardly, but in close conformity with the plan of the rhythm. Examples in Latin poetry are often met with : ill! indlgnantes ?nagno cut muraure Tnontis. Verg. Aen. i, 55. solvite corde metum Teucri secludite curas. ib. i, 562. /evis crepante /ympha desi/it pede. Hor. Ep. xvi, 48. 3. The Connected or Disconnected Character of Sounds. Syllables are ordinarily uttered either in smoothly con- nected successions or detached from one another. These effects are not unlike legato and staccato notes in music. The fact is, our speech has here many gradations, several of which may not infrequently be detected within the limits of a single verse, or even of a single word. The relative closeness of sounds serves different purposes, one of which is to support the rhythm, though this is done in ways that are extremely subtle and seldom consciously apprehended perse. These effects play through the succession of sounds in such a manner that, as the need arises, the rhythmical divisions are thereby emphasized and thrown into relief. The poet indi- cates them to some extent in his text, but a great deal has to be left to the feeling and interpretation of the individual reader or singer. For an example take Tennyson's lines : Thou read the book, my pretty Vivien ! O ay, it is but twenty pages long. 16 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY A sort of balance or parallelism is here brought about by the alternation of staccato and legato effects (the foniu-r being indicated by dots). 4. Location of Correlated Expressions. Coordinate words or parts of words may be so placed by the poet that rhyth- mical divisions are thereby thrown into relief. Take, for example, these lines from Pope's Essay on Criticism, where the quotations are introduced in such a manner that they set off the limits of the verse and, less exactly, the limit s of its two main divisions : While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes ; Where'er you find " the cooling western breeze," In the next line it " whispers through the trees." This point, however, finds happiest illustration, not in our own so-called analytic languages but rather in the synthetic languages, like Greek or Latin, where word order is not much bound by grammatical considerations, but is free for a wide range of rhetorical effects. The bearing of word order on the rhythm, as regards the Latin language, may be illustrated by the following verses from Horace's Odes : (1) Chiasmus. luctantem Teams | fluctibus Africum. i, 1, 15. (2) Agreement of the first and last words in a verse. Myrtdum pavidus | nauta secet mare. i, 1, 14. (3) Corresponding inflectional endings at the close of the halves of a verse. quidquid de Libyci* | verritur areis i, 1, 10, GENERAL PRINCIPLES 17 (4) Interlocked word order. Maecenas atavis | edite regibus. i, 1, 1. (5) Each half of a verse occupied by a closely knit word group. obstrictis aliis | praeter lapyga. i, 3, 4. (6) Anaphora. nee trlstis Hyadas | nee rabiem Noti. i, 3, 14. (7) A pair of coordinate words may be placed : a. As the initial words in the halves. These halves may belong to the same verse, as in 6 above, or to different verses. me doctarum ederae | praemia f rontium dis miscent superis : | me gelidum nemus. i, 1, 29-30. seu visa est catulis | cerva fidelibus, seu riipit teretes | Marsus aper plagas i, 1, 27-28. b. As the pivotal words in the halves. spernit, nunc viridi | membra sub arbuto stratus, nunc ad aquae | lene caput sacrae. i, 1, 2122. quas out Parrhasius | protulit out Scopas. iv, 8, 6. After all, when one reads a poem from the printed page, the mechanical devices for producing rhythm, such as have been described, would avail little without the reader's instinct to rhythmize. The rhythm is something more than the sound materials employed in producing it. So deep is a feeling for rhythm grounded in human nature that when the reader catches the suggestion of the poem's rhythm he is somehow impelled from within to carry it forward in its ideal form, himself making good any 18 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY shortcomings and irregularities that may be inherent in the language of the poem. 1 It may be noted in this connection that sounds for any reason subject to variation in speech, when introduced into a poem, are uttered in the particular form that is suited to the place in the verse where they occur. Thus, through the constraint of rhythm, rime, or some other influence in the poet's art, (a) an old-fashioned pronun- ciation may be demanded, as when wind reverts to wind, or charmed to charmed] (b) a sound may be somewhat curtailed or extended ; as an example of the latter, country is sometimes given the value countree ; (c) two syllables, whether of a single word or of adjacent words, sometimes under particular circumstances are reduced to one ; as when heaven is sounded heav'n, or the eternal becomes th' eternal. Once in a while the reader or singer is led to 1 " Nor . . . can we refer the pleasure of rhythmical apperception or activity wholly to the sensuous feeling and organic reverberation aroused. . . . The pleasure derives not from the quality of the indi- vidual elements . . . but evolves also from the fact that the rhythm is characterized by formal unity, that it possesses a beginning, a climax, an end, as individual and definite as the quality of the single beat or the constitution of the unit group which enters into it ; and this sense of the complete formal sequence is present from the beginning and pervades the whole experience of rhythm. Curtail the series, and its f ragmentariness is immediately felt as an imperfection of the rhythmic form ; add redundant elements, and the overstepping of the natural rhythmic close is felt in the same immediate way ; introduce incon- gruous forms of temporal or intensive relation, and the discrepancy jars upon the aesthetic consciousness as a violation of the sequence which the rhythmical formation demands. A rhythmical series un- completed or wrongly executed may haunt the mind for hours or days, until satisfaction is obtained at last by striking the final note or singing the phrase in correct time." Professor MacDougall, Psych. Review, January, 1903. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 19 make two syllables out of what ordinarily strikes the ear as one ; as when legion becomes Icgi-on. All these varia- tions are generally introduced by the poet only when something of the kind becomes necessary to make the sounds suggest adequately the rhythmical divisions. He is not justified in any variations that are so violent as to obscure the identity of the words, nor in any without basis and warrant in the usages of speech. EELATION OF EHYTHM TO IDEAS A word has a twofold use. On the one hand it conveys a direct literal meaning such as is ascribed to it in the dictionary. On the other hand it often indirectly suggests meaning. For example, in accordance with the principle of onomatoposia, it may call up some idea by its mere sound ; again, words may have such interrelations of sound as rime, assonance, or alliteration, and thereby produce emphasis or some other effect on the mind of a hearer; again, the sound properties of a word may be so articu- lated with those of preceding and following words that rhythm results. In these and many other ways the sounds of words may be so arranged and managed that they sug- gest more than is conveyed by their direct meaning. The way a poet makes his language indirectly suggest meaning has been happily touched upon by Mr. F. W. H. Myers in his essay on Vergil : In poetry of the first order, almost every word (to use a mathe- matical metaphor) is raised to a higher power. It continues to be an articulate sound and a logical step in the argument ; but it becomes also a musical sound and a center of emotional force. It becomes a musical sound ; that is to say, its consonants and 20 CLASSICAL LATIX POETRY vowels are arranged to bear a relation to the consonants and vowels near it, a relation of which accent, quantity, rime, assonance, and alliteration are specialized forms, but which may be of a character more subtle than any of these. And it becomes a center of emotional force ; that is to say, the complex asso- ciations which it evokes modify the associations evoked by other words in the same passage in a way quite distinct from grammat- ical or logical connection. The poet, therefore, must avoid two opposite dangers. If he thinks too exclusively of the music and the coloring of his verse of the imaginative means of suggest- ing thought and feeling what he writes will lack reality and sense. But if he cares only to communicate definite thought and feeling according to the ordinary laws of eloquent speech, his verse is likely to be deficient in magical and suggestive power. And what is meant by the vague praise so often bestowed on Vergil's unequaled style is practically this, that he has been, perhaps, more successful than any other poet in fusing together the expressed and the suggested emotion ; that he has discovered the hidden music which can give to every shade of feeling its distinction, its permanence, and its charm ; that his thoughts seem to come to us on the wings of melodies prepared for them from the foundation of the world. Rhythm does not exist as a tiling by itself, but is part of a larger whole. As viewed here, it is one among a num- ber of correlated forces that make up a poem. And, what seems at first thought beyond human skill, all these forces are made to act upon a hearer through the medium of a single current of syllables. For how otherwise does a poem when read or sung strike the ear ? To arrange a suc- cession of syllables with sole reference to rhythm is perhaps not difficult; but to arrange them so that the selfsame series shall embody, in due form and as occa- sion demands, words, phrases, clauses, sentences, pauses, GENERAL PRINCIPLES 21 accent, quantity, rhythm, rime, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, harmony, variety, symmetry, and other poetic properties, all contributing directly or indirectly to the sense, is a rare feat of creative skill. Thought expressed in prose enters the mind of a hearer directly and through few doorways ; but thought in poetic form is borne in upon the mind along more avenues of approach, each message confirming and reenforcing every other. 1 A poem may be regarded as the outpouring of thought in words so chosen and ordered that, when uttered natu- rally, they carry with them a complex and subtle accom- paniment, this in no way distracting attention but rather contributing something to the force of the thought. It is significant that the rhythmical cadences of prose are generally most marked in passages of strong emotion, as though the speaker there found the literal meaning of words insufficient and instinctively sought additional ways of driving home Ms thought and feeling. 1 This principle finds illustration in any poem. Especially inter- esting, however, in this connection is Vergil, G. i, 322-334, on which passage Papillon and Haigh have the following note: "This descrip- tion of a storm is perhaps one of the most highly worked and care- fully finished passages in Vergil or any other poet language, imagery, and rhythm all combining to produce consummate poetic effect. Note especially the force of the pauses in 324, 326, 329-331, and 333; of the perfects fugere and stravit, 330, 331 ; of the expressions ruit, 324, spirantibus, 327, corusca, 328 ; of the alliterations in 329, 330, and of sound and rhythm alike in 334. Dr. Kennedy says on 328-334, ' The pause at dextra marks the calmness of conscious strength ; at tremit, breathless terror; at pavor, prostrate expectation. The fol- lowing ille and the thrice repeated aut express the majestic ease of omnipotence ; at delicti falls the sudden crash of the bolt ; in the words which follow is heard the rushing, struggling, moaning tempest.' " 22 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY KHYTHMICAL ELEMENTS SYLLABLES Ehythni as involved in poetry has been considered in the foregoing pages along general lines, but from tliis point onward the subject will be restricted to the single field of Latin. It is now in order to develop somewhat more fully a phase of the subject already touched upon, namely, the part played by syllables. The existence of syllables rests upon a natural basis. The voice can not convey a succession of thoughts except by being varied into differ- ent sounds, and these can not be sufficiently numerous and distinguishable for our needs except by the introductior of such as break or hinder the current of breath, producing a division into syllables. The poet's recognition and selection of syllables for the purposes of versification, far from being a highly artificial process, is mainly subconscious. His standard and criterion are not the dictionary, nor words sounded separately, but audible, fluent speech. And so it not infrequently happens that when one word is merged into another, the result is a syllable that embraces parts of two words. To read Latin poetry well, one must bring out distinctly the sound properties of the syllables, some of these properties being inherent in the separate syllables, some resulting from the effect one syllable has upon another. "What, in detail, are these properties ? A syllable comprises a vowel alone, a diphthong alone, or either in close union with one or more consonants. Latin vowels, according to the ancients, fell into three classes: (1) those of brief duration and therefore considered short, (2) those more extended in time and therefore considered GENERAL PRINCIPLES 23 long, and (3) those occurring in closely knit pairs, called diph- thongs, the same being long. Consonants seemed to affect the length of syllables, in that syllables were spoken more or less quickly, and therefore occupied more or less time, accord- ing to the number, order, and position of the consonants. In the daily speech of the Komans the syllables, if exactly measured, must have occupied many different lengths of time. This is borne out by analogy with other languages and by certain lines of internal evidence. For example, take the syllabic combinations of consonant and vowel sounds known to the Latin language, as shown in the following table (v = short vowel ; v = long vowel or diphthong ; c = consonant) : C v e(nim) Short Syllables Long Syllables [cv /"(I) ccv s/a(tus) cccv stru(o) V o cv da ccv sta cccv sfra(tus) vc et cvc sit CC.VC slot cccvc sfric(tus) vc OS cvc sU ccvc stds cccvc s/nZc(tus) vcc est cvcc sunt ccvcc slant cccvcc strix vcc (sci)ens cvcc dans ccvcc stans 24 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY Manifestly the time required for uttering these diverse forms varies considerably. And yet a system of versifica- tion that should take into account many syllabic lengths would be unwieldy. The Romans, therefore, did well to recognize two and, in the main, only two lengths of sylla- bles in their language, namely short and long. A long syllable was normally taken to have twice the duration of a short syllable. The latter derived its length from the average duration of the most rapidly uttered syllables in easy, fluent speech. People of slow enunciation naturally protracted their syllables more than rapid speakers, but for purposes of rendering poetry whatever time was nor- mally taken by an individual in uttering an average short syllable became for him a standard of length. In Latin poetic rhythm the shortest durations having a clearly marked unity are the feet. A foot, however, is made up of a certain number of still shorter durations, or brief spaces of time, each made sensible to the ear by a syllable, rarely by a rest, contained within it. (For con- venience, such spaces of time composing a foot will here- after be referred to as metrical spaces, or simply spaces.) A short space (known also as a time, mora, semeion, or %p6vo<; 7r/3 and musically by ffi*, being composed of two spaces, a short followed by a long. These are filled, at least approximately, by a short syllable and a long syllable respectively. A triple space has thrice the time of a short one and is filled by a long syllable sustained partly by its own usual length and partly by the regulating effect of the rhythm through- out the prescribed space. It is represented by the % symbol i- or -j and by the musical sign of the dotted quarter note (j*'). A quadruple space, similar to the foregoing except that it is equal to the sum of four short spaces, is represented by the symbol i i and by the musical sign of the half note (f^). The four spaces just described are sometimes spoken of as monosemic, duosemic, tri- semic, and tetrasemic respectively. If the time normally occupied by any syllable of a word in common speech should vary perceptibly from the space, whatever it may be, where the poet has placed it, the reader or singer, guided by his feeling for the swing of the rhythm as a whole, increases or diminishes the sound to fit the conditions. A syllable is said to be closed when it ends with a con- sonant, and open when it ends with a vowel. What sounds, it is now in order to ask, were acceptable to the Koman ear in short spaces, what ones in long spaces ? Manifestly a short syllable was placed within a short space and a long syllable within a long space. But precisely what conditions were present in syllables that ranked as short and what in those that ranked as long? In seeking an answer to this question we should constantly regard Latin versification in the light of the conditions 26 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY amid which it originated and developed. It is well, for example, 1. To bear in mind that this mode of versification grew up at an early period among the Greeks, and \\as subsequently superimposed upon Latin, which had already been fitted to a radically different system of versification, one wherein stress elements prob- ably played an important part. 2. To realize as fully as possible the peculiarities of Greek pronunciation, especially those affecting the quantity of syllables. 3. To realize the circumstances of poetical composition. The art of versification, being rooted in feeling, was doubtless well established before rules were drawn up, and in all periods must have been prac- ticed to a certain extent without reference to them. 4. To know, therefore, that syllables, as rhythmical elements, assume their real form not when spelled, but when sounded. 5. To take into account the fact that singing was the fore- runner of poetry and in a sense gave rise to it, as is hinted by the double meaning of aeiSeiv, carmen, and canere. Accordingly the speech-sounds appropriate within a given metrical space were originally those which it was easy and natural to sing in that situation. 6. To note what meaning lies in the fact that a verse as it appeared on the written page was often continu- ous, there being no more space between words than between letters of the same word. 7. To realize that carrying out completely the laws of poetic expression presupposes a perfect poet, GENERAL riilN'CIPLES 27 working with perfect language materials. We may not assume, therefore, that every Latin verse coming down to us from antiquity is a perfect thing ; here and there one feature must have been realized somewhat at the expense of another. Since we can no longer listen to. the living voices of the Greeks and Romans, the best we can do in seeking an answer to our proposed questions is to study Greek and Latin poetry in the form in which it survives, together with recorded testimony of the ancients and analogous usages of modern speech. In the first place, it is to be observed that every syllable comprises one or more of the three following elements : 1. The ante-vowel element (often wanting). 2. The vowel element (never wanting). 3. The post-vowel element (often wanting). In the first syllable of e-bul-li-en-do ', for example, the vowel element alone is present, in the second syllable all three elements, in the third syllable the ante-vowel and the vowel elements, in the fourth syllable the vowel and post- vowel elements. We are now hi a position to consider a very important point in the nature of syllables. While the component elements are generally so thoroughly welded together that they are not separately appreciated, still each ele- ment influences directly or indirectly the amount of time taken up by a syllable. The ante-vowel element, however, seems to have little or no effect. Practically it does not take up time. This was the feeling of the ancients, at least, and much the same thing is true of ourselves. When a syllable containing all three elements is sounded 28 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY in our ears we do not ordinarily begin to take note of the time occupied until the vowel element sets in. The time that the syllable seems to occupy is determined mainly by the vowel and post-vowel elements. The ante-vowel element, therefore, for purposes of Latin versification does not increase the quantity of the syllable to which it belonga In the following verse of the ^Eneid (i, 102), for example, talia iactanti stridens Aquilone />rocella, the syllables a, ne, and pro each fill a short space. We have, therefore, as a working rule : Ante-vowel consonants within a syllable do not affect its quantity. A well-attested fact has been handed down to us from antiquity, namely, that a single consonant occurring between two vowels of a word is sounded more closely with the latter than with the former voweL For example, be-ne-jv-cira. From this it appears at once that initial and medial short syllables end with a short vowel. But when words are uttered in a smoothly connected succession, as is usually the case in Latin verse, somewhat the same principle applies to final syllables. 1 That is, if a word ends with a consonant and the ultima of that word serves to fill a short metrical space, as in primus of the first example below, the rhythmical flow of the language, when sung or read, tends to carry the sound of the final consonant over to the initial vowel of the next word. Even in our heavily accented English this usage holds to some extent, for we say quite naturally hi fluent speech a-tome instead of at home, and a-tall instead of at all. In 1 ... in earminibus . . . exigitur strflctura quaedam et inofff nsa cOpulatiS vOcum. Quintilian, i, 10, 28. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 29 order to illustrate and to bring this point squarely before us, take the verses : arma virumque cano Troiae qul primus ab oris. Verg. A en. i, 1. accepit galea et primus clainore secundo. ib. v, 491. Speech sounds, let us bear in mind, are symbolized to the eye by absolutely distinct letters, whereas in actual utter- ance they are fluid in character and often merge in one another. The syllables of Troiae, for example, are con- ventionally represented Tro-iae. This implies a sharp division ; the probability is, however, that with most ancient readers this consonant i, while amalgamating mainly with the ae, emanated, as it were, from the 6, so that it becomes a difficult matter to state exactly what sounds or fractions of sounds entered into each syllable of this word, or indeed of any word. Let us now note the two instances of the word primus as used in the lines quoted above. Knowing the structure of the verses we discover that the latter part of the first primus filled a short metrical space, but the latter part of the second primus a long space. It is not reasonable to sup- pose that the parts in question were sounded identically in these unlike situations. We can only conclude that the final syllable of primus in the second case was closed, but in the first case had the effect of an open syllable, the s being carried along to the next word. This process whereby a final consonant is sounded somewhat in conjunction with a following initial vowel is termed linking (compare the French liaison). The final syllable of the first primus appears closed as the eye sees it on the page, but it is really open as the ear hears 30 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY it in fluent reading. And what is heard is of course the true test. The poet takes care never to introduce a short syllable of this kind without providing an escape, so to speak, for the final consonant, that is, without having the next word begin with a vowel. To be sure, any rhetorical pause that happens to occur after such a final syllable proves embarrassing, because it keeps the final consonant wholly with its word. Verses with a pause so introduced, however, are rare, and they are to be viewed in the light of 7 on pages 26 f. In such instances the poet has failed to bring the materials of language closely into harmony with the plan of the rhythm. That linking existed in Latin is well attested. Cicero, for example, (De Oratore, iii, 172) approves an orator's speech," if the final and initial parts of words are so linked together that neither harsh collision nor marked hiatus is produced (si verba extivma cum consequentibus primis ita iungentur, ut neve aspere concurrant neve vastius diducantur)." And Quintilian (ix, 4, 44) gives us clearly to understand that in fluent speech the concluding part of one word was closely joined with the initial part of the next word (extrema ac prima coeunt). Therefore, under the conditions of fluent read- ing, a short syllable ends with a short vowel. And, since all other syllables are classed as long, a long syUidlc ends with a long vowel or with a consonant (see table on page 23). We may now look at certain concrete cases under this last rule. In the JEneid, vi, . Here the sounds resulting from the elision must come within a short metrical space and therefore do service as a short syllable, even though the first vowel involved is long by nature. Further evidence that the first vowel was repressed is found in Quintilian's remark (ix, 4, 36) : coeuntes litterae, quae avva\oi r _Lf ille 2. Iambus Three Short s. + long s. _ or^J fero 3. Tribrach Three Short s. + short s. + short s. w w w or h M^ 999 itaque 4. Dactyl Four Long s. + short s. + short s. w w or 1 _M** 999 denique 5. Anapest Four Short s. + short s. + long s. w w or N M * dubito 6. Spondee Four Long s.+long s. or JJ vero Other feet are the diiamb . ^, the ditrochee _^_^-, the choriamb _ww_, the Ionic a maiore w, the Ionic a minore ^^ , the antispast ^ ^, the Cretic _ w_, the Bacchius ^ , the Molossus , the first paeon _www, the fourth paeon ww^>_, and the proceleus- matic v^w^w. 46 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY As a rule, a poet avoids making successive words each coincide with successive feet in the opening and middle parts of a verse. When a word and a foot end coinciden- tally, the resulting break in the rhythm is called a diceresis, but when a word ends within a foot, the break is called a caesura. Caesuras tend to occur more often than diaereses, especially in the opening and middle parts of a verse. A masculine caesura, so called from its strong and firm sound effect, is one occurring between a thesis and an arsis. A. feminine caesura, with its light and rapid effect, is one occurring within an arsis. A caesura is called trithe- mimeral, penthemimeral, or hepthemimeral according as it occurs after the third, fifth, or seventh half-foot of a verse. As the feet of a rhythm succeed one another they tend to fall into groups marking other divisions of time whi<-h have greater and greater amplitudes. Each division has its own unity, which, however, is not dominant enough to do away with the more comprehensive unity of the next higher division. The colon is composed of feet and the verse of cola. Out of verses, themselves sometimes combined into strophes, springs the poem. COLA A colon is a rhythmical division arising from a regular grouping of feet. The number of feet included in each colon varies with different rhythms but hi any case it is not less than two nor more than six. These limits depend on the amount of speech that can be uttered comfortably without taking breath, on the range of sounds that makes an agreeable phrase (hi the musical sense), and on other conditions of the human ear and voice. The unity of a GENERAL PRINCIPLES 47 colon is signalized sometimes by rhythmical pauses that precede and follow it (see I, page 10), always by the fact that one of the ictuses within it is made prominent above the others. In trochaic or iambic rhythm a colon may have six feet, but in dactylic or anapestic rhythm it may not extend beyond five. The dactylic hexameter, which exceeds the limits of a single colon, is thought to have arisen from the union of two cola, each containing three feet. GTreek poetry now and then shows an hexameter in which the opening colon seems to embrace four feet and the other colon two feet. This type, however, is rare in Latin and may here be neglected. VERSES But a succession of feet freed from a certain monotony by being grouped into successive cola does not completely satisfy the poet's feeling. Still other modes of grouping are necessary. Accordingly, to obviate fatigue as much as possible for the reader or singer, to increase the effect of variety, to bring about a still more pleasing and artistic form, cola in their turn are combined into verses. The length of a verse is determined by certain limitations in man's powers, in particular by the extent of sustained effort that is natural to the ear and voice. Accordingly, the number of cola belonging to a verse is one, two, or three ; in most rhythms, as in the dactylic hexameter, two. A verse is generally written as a separate line on the page, in keeping with the derivation of its name from versus, a turning. In some rhythms an ancient reader seems to have felt the feet singly, while in others they ran in pairs. Hence 48 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY the length of a verse is indicated in two ways. The measure employed in iambic, trochaic, and anapestic rhythms con- sists of two feet, or a dipody. An iambic dimeter, for example, is two measures long but has four feet. In other rhythms the measure consists of a single foot. A dactylic hexameter is six measures long and has six feet. The complete name of a verse generally involves (1) an adjective showing the kind of feet it contains if these vary the adjective should describe the fundamental foot; (2) a noun denoting the length of the verse ; and (3) an adjective describing the conclusion of the verse, namely, acatalectic if the final foot is complete, catalectic if the latter part of it is wanting. In case the third part of the name is not expressed, it is understood to be acatalectic. A dactylic hexameter, then, is a verse whose fundamental feet are dactyls, whose length is six measures, indicat- ing six feet, and whose last foot is complete. An iambic trimeter catalectic has the iambus as its fundamental foot, has three measures and six feet, the last one being incom- plete. For example : vocatus atque non vocatus audit Hor. Od. ii, 18, 40. There remain to be considered several other matters pertaining to the form and character of the rhythmical division now under discussion. While it is true that the verses of a poem are intended to succeed one another in compact and closely connected series, still no mode of iv; 11 ling is justifiable that fails to allow each verse to 111:1 kc its complete and individual impression. Thus there arises an important use of the rhythmical pause (see page 10). Aside from the rare and exceptional conditions described GENERAL PRINCIPLES 49 in 3 on page 36, such a pause is uniformly to be observed at the close of a verse ; moreover, this holds even when the sense at that point does not require a stop. The fact that rhythmical pauses intervene between verses, and that in general one's rhythmical sense does not measure exactly the final sound in a series, makes it unnecessary always to fill out the last metrical space of a verse with the precise length of sound that theoretically belongs within it. Thus a certain elasticity in the length of the syllable is permitted at that point, and yet the time relations of the rhythm as a whole are kept sufficiently true. To this syllable of indifferent length, standing within a final metrical space of a verse, is given the name syllaba anceps. This final syllable is also responsible for another sound effect permitted between verses but generally avoided within a verse. That is, the poet is at liberty to end one verse with a vowel, or a vowel + m, and to begin the next with a vowel, or h + a vowel. This is called inter-verse hiatus. A verse, except it be one of very limited range, is regu- larly so composed that a reader, without doing violence to the sense or the rhythm, may pause for an instant in the midst of its course. There results a feature which con- tributes at once to variety of effect and ease of delivery. In some types the pause occurs at a diaeresis. An example is the dactylic pentameter ; here the two phrases of sound that result from the division coincide with the two cola that constitute the verse. In other types and now we come upon a very numerous class the pause occurs at a caesura. An example is the dactylic hexameter; the poet is here bound to make the arrangement of words 50 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY consistent with a pause in the third or fourth foot, the resulting phrases of sound falling slightly at variance with the two cola of the verse. GROUPS OF VERSES A Latin poem involves either verses of a single kind arranged in series of indefinite length, as in the JSneid, or verses of different kinds arranged in series of definite length, as in many Odes of Horace. In the first instance the arrangement is said to be stichic, in the second the verses are arranged in strophes or stanzas. PART II. THE DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER Two kinds of feet are involved in these types of verse : the dactyl (-^-ww) and its metrical equivalent the spondee ( ). The fundamental foot is the dactyl, for which, however, the spondee is very often substituted. In the d2neid dactyls stand to spondees in about the ratio of thirteen to eleven. I. THE DACTYLIC HEXAMETER Scheme : -Lw \ -Z-co | J-^ \ -L^ \ J-t ? \ -L^. The rhythm is illustrated by the following selection, in which syllables having the ictus are marked underneath by dots. Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Lavlniaque venit litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem lunonis ob Iram ; multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum Albanlque patres atque altae moenia Romae. Musa, mihl causas memora, quo numine laeso quidve dolens, reglna deum tot volvere casus insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae ? Verg. Aen. i, 1-11. 51 52 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY Sll _ ^-. ; O5 T* l>- 05 X O) * 05 co oo 00 ^H ~, ^l ~ ^ "*^ O Ol 01 eo S l>- *^ ^ 1 Jl| 01 eo Ol ~ i-H 10 CO ^ i-H 8 -^ii.n "l feet 1 00 13 13 1 13 00 00 ~ ^3 =2 31 / r Q 00 ~ oo 13 13 V T3 13 oo T3 i 00 I _z o; co x *^ 'O oe i-Q CO CO *^ CO 00 ^3 t3 -T '-f- 73 13 ob 13 CO /; ~ /. 1 ~ y. ^ X K ,a -u a 9 a CO o 00 a cS i -e 1 i~ '3' K/\ ,1. I'll-,' A/r/y.v ant ani'mos et i'nania ' miirmura ' mi Four Dactyls i'gns sum'ma placi'dum capu't extuli gravi'ora da bit deu s his quoque ' f I i ' vos gene'ris tenu'it fi'ducia ' vestrl 5. j= d hi "aS = 1 ' O e *-! O> |. tri'bus popu'loque pe'natibu's et maj r/ij-ce Dactyls um re'gina iu'bes reno'vare do'lorem li'hl cau'sas memo ra quo ' numine ' 1 ;Is preci'busque iu'bent ex'poscere ' p amma to se'cum dea ' corde vo'lutans tra auguri'um va'ni docu'ere pa'rentt 'ro pate'r Afiu" a> -i o OtVU a 1) alto 1 _i. 10) -4J /. i- i 'E- i -l 'C' i Crustiiiiic nijiif ft turri^erae An'te JU o jp' Q 83 13 s io ? r. ~ ~ 1. 'ft 00 O- ' rt CS -*3 ft C !s 1 4-l != '^ ^ r f. -1 * 8 O- * :S- s S co' +i B A ~ <- o . 7J K i-H O Ol 9Q | * O4 i ^i ^ 05 :3 eo 00 Ol o 01 d :-' 1 01 CO ^ O co l " oo ~ 71 H * CO W X p w CO CO DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER 53 o CO 7) r t 71 rr r X OS a 71 i 1 o CO ~ /. oo ~ X co /. GO CO CO X X X X ^ CO | f. -/. X 1 | T3 00 CO CO 1 X CO X X X a CO 1 T3 CQ co CO X X O r! !; o> 1 loci'os ser'mone re'qulrunt a Tro'ianus o'rigine ' Caesar gres'sumque ad ' moenia ' tei quum dl'vlna ' Palladi's arte ce'r additu'r Anchl'seo lon'gS sed ' proximu's inter'v qul ' Parrhasi'o E'vandro s I- ~ 1 13 ;3 ^ _>' s quern ' Dardani'o An'chlsa CD -' ~o> i IT- IT i len'to du'cunt ar'gento VJ -E Is- o> rt x a t-, _P' . ICO- IO> ^ a- o - ncu's T. O- i. -E CO '3 o> CO wS = OP. S E 8 amis'sos nasce'tur talibu's i = tl X S- O 03- proximu 1 serva'bat CD- R ig A cj- fl is- Nerei'dui X 1- ^ CD 00 o 1 t r- 1 CD o 71 co co t~ . i i- eo CO 71 d 1"~( "~ CO M CO 12 t if: CD i - ac C ^ ci r: - j -g _^ s a X O s " J a. x c^.-S x .^5 c 5 2 :a 'B bo O ^ I^~ oo co S -^ 5 ^ "3 t > ^ S S F o fee * S - /^v r & * '& 8" g ^i^S 8 S*.2 ^ s > CQ ^ be c f i a jj - 'i^ "o " -g S ci x 1-8,1 fe a M P B OJ S tn G cu S5 1|2 S ^ * I 1 bo 5 x (< S 9*8 H-. O 5 s 4) CU tn C ^ O *" ^ S J s -c cq Owa M ^ * I n3 *-> ^ r^ K -O 4^ p cp f- -a TI t -c .0 .S g O ^3 ,0 ^ S fi| SB-S 8 I l"H 4= 4H 13 54 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY These twenty-five examples from the jEtniil exhibit many characteristics of the verse under consideration. The dactylic hexameter consists of two cola having three feet each. Within perpendicular lines are represented the sounds that measure off the several feet. Column .s' gives the succession of dactyls and spondees in em -h rase : column JVthe number of verses hi the jflneid having the given succession, thus showing the favor it enjoyed. The first foot, it will be seen, may be either a dactyl or a spondee. The same is true of the second, third, and fourth feet. In fact the same is true of the fifth foot, i>ut with an important difference of degree ; for, by reference to column N, it becomes evident that a spondee in that place is extremely rare. When a spondee is so placed, the line is called a spondaic verse. The final foot is measured in every case by means of two syllables. In most instances both are long and we have a normal spondee. This is the case not only in examples 1 and '2 but also hi 3 and 17, a closed syllable being long. In some instances, like example 18, the first syllable is long and the second short. The presence of such a final syllable is to be explained on the principle of the syllaba anceps as set forth on page 49. The end of any long verse is naturally marked by a certain closing cadence. This fact helps to explain several features in the structure of the dactylic hexameter: (") the last two feet are fixed in kind and arrangement, a dactyl and a spondee, the more tranquil foot coming last ; (b) the words falling within these feet are, as a rule, either dissyllabic or trisyllabic; (c) ictus and word accent here usually coincide in the main a natural result of the DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER 55 two foregoing conditions, and yet one that comes to be enjoyed along with effects that the poet has attained in a more conscious and deliberate way. By way of contrast the other part of the verse has the following effects: the first four feet have no uniform arrangement; the words within those limits vary widely in length; ictus and word accent may or may not coincide, the poet's pref- erence being to have them fall separately. A monosyllable rarely stands at the end of the verse. Such a word in that position is likely to be enclitic; moreover its abrupt effect is often further softened by another monosyllable occurring in the same foot, as in prospectum late pelago petit Anthea si quern. Verg. Aen. i, 181. The poet, however, sometimes departs from this usage when he wishes to produce an impressive (Aen. i, 6 5, and example 6 hi the table above) or surprising effect. Horace's verse, parturient inontes, nascetur ridiculus mus. A. P. 139, conveys its ludicrous surprise in part by its rhythmical form, and Vergil's quae vigilanda viris vel cum ruit imbriferum ver. G. i, 313, has an unexpected close that comes over one very much like the thing he is mentioning, spring showers. It is rare to find at the end of a verse a word of five syllables, still more so one of four syllables. Spondaic verses, however, in conformity with a usage set in Alex- andrine Greek poetry, rarely end with a trisyllable, almost never with a dissyllable, but normally with a quadrisyl- lable (and this word is often a proper noun or proper 56 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY adjective). " Spondaic verses are comparatively rare in Ennius and Lucretius, but become more frequent in Catullus [a mark of Ms fondness for Alexandrine poetry]. They are not common in Vergil, Horace, Propertius, and Ovid, and do not occur at all in Tibullus. Persius has one spondaic verse, Valerius Flaccus one, Claudian five, Silius Italicus six, Statius seven." Lane, Latin Grammar, 2567. Many dactyls in a verse give the effect of lightness or rapid motion, as in quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum. Verg. Aen. viii, 596. Many spondees, on the other hand, give the effect of solemnity or slow motion, as in vultu quo caelum tempestatesque serenat. ib. i, 255. The first four feet of the verse are normally composed in such a way that caesuras outnumber diaereses. Should diaereses be in excess, the limits of the feet would be too sharply defined ; the structure would be thrown into too bold a relief; and the verse would lack variety, fluency, and musical quality, as in the following example : sparsis hastis longis campus splendet et horret. Ennius, Fragm. Varia, 14 (Vahlen). Caesuras, as appears in the table of examples, are found in all parts of the verse. Such a break occurs nearly always in the third or fourth foot, but very infrequently in the sixth. This treatment results from a feeling that any verse having considerable range can not be agreeably read as a single movement, unbroken and evenly sustained. 1 1 IncIsiSngs etiam versuum, quas Graecl ro/iij vocant, ante omnia in hexametrO necessariO observandae sunt. Marius Victorinus, i, 19. DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER 57 Hence, the dactylic hexameter is composed of two parts, each signalized by containing a more or less compact group of words. The break between these parts gives a reader an opportunity to take breath. Since a diaeresis employed for this purpose would impair the rhythmical flow of the verse as a whole, this break is normally a caesura. It is distin- guished from other caesuras by the name main caesura. It is usually located at the middle of the third foot, in which case it is called a penthemimeral caesura ; less often it occurs at the middle of the fourth foot and receives the name hepthemimeral caesura. Within the second part of the verse an opportunity to take breath is sometimes offered between the fourth and fifth feet. Such a break is called a bucolic diceresis, because of its rather frequent use among Greek bucolic poets. It is rare among Latin poets, except Juvenal. When it does occur, it is generally secondary in importance to a caesura in the second or third foot of the verse, as in Ite domum saturae, venit Hesperus, ite capellae. Verg. E. x, 77. The frequent use of the penthemimeral caesura is fur- ther explained by the poet's desire to build the verse of two parts, a shorter followed by a longer. The reversed order (brought about, for example, by the hepthemimeral caesura), if often repeated, would be less happy. Even artistic Latin prose is subject to much the same law. In discussing the characteristics of the period Cicero says (De Oratore, in, 48, 186) that the effect is most agreeable when shorter word groups are followed by longer. Elision is freely admitted into the hexameter by clas- sical poets, especially by Vergil, and is most common within the second, third, and fourth feet. 58 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY The hexameter exhibits almost endless variety. For example, the character of the feet and the range of the verse often allow repeated expressions to receive different metrical treatment, as in the following instances : primus humum fodito primiis devecta cremate. Verg. G. ii, 408. mlrantur dona Aeneae mlrantur luliuu. id. Aen. i, 709. multa super Priamo rogitans super Hectore multa. ib. i, 750. To take another feature, the verses constantly undergo changes of form, resulting partly from the various arrange- ments of the included dactyls and spondees, partly from the shifting main caesuras, which, as we have seen, may assume several different positions. Again, variety springs from the great flexibility of the first four feet of the verse as contrasted with the final two: within the former portion a free arrangement of dactyls and spondees is followed within the latter by a fixed and orderly arrange- ment ; a varied location of word accent with reference to ictus is followed by a conjoining of these elements ; words widely diverse hi length are followed by words of fairly uniform length ; a somewhat free use of elision is followed by a less free use. After the first four feet with their individual qualities, the ear finds a peculiar rest and pleasure hi the last two with their uniform sequence, their tranquil word lengths, their united ictuses and word accents, and their subsiding cadence. Each part freshens the ear and mind for a renewed enjoyment of the other, and yet the two are sufficiently homogeneous so that the unity of the verse is not lost. Among the Greeks and Romans the dactylic hexameter verse became a favorite form for poetic expression. From DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER 59 the Homeric period down to the Middle Ages man com- mitted to its cadences much of his most inspired thought. Of this the choicest portion has happily escaped neglect, one generation cherishing its heritage for the next, in the earliest tunes by the power of memory, later by the written or printed page, until at last it has come into our hands. Wonderfully impressive are the associations of this world-old world-wide song. II. THE DACTYLIC PENTAMETER The -name pentameter, though brought into use by the ancients themselves, hardly gives a correct impression of the verse, which has two cola of equal length and seems to be a hexameter with the third and sixth feet modified. For purposes of reading, the normal scheme was : _!o^ | --Ow | -- A \ -Lw | -Lwv/ I w A When, however, this verse was employed in song, the syllables within the third and sixth feet naturally were affected by protraction and became tetrasemic, thus filling the divisions entirely with sound. Under these conditions no pause ( A ) was required. A reader was always at liberty to treat the feet in a similar manner. 1 Tliis verse alternates with the dactylic hexameter, thus forming the elegiac strophe. The following illustration is from Ovid (Fasti, i, 1-10) : Tempora cum causis Latium digesta per annum lapsaque sub terras ortaque signa canam. Excipe pacato, Caesar Germanice, vultu hoc opus, et timidae dirige navis iter; 1 See Allen and Greenough, New Latin Grammar, 616, b. 60 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY officioque, levem non aversatus honoretn, huic tibi devoto numine dexter ades. Sacra recognosces annalibus eruta priscls, et quo sit merito quaeque notata dif-s. Invenies illic et festa domestica vobls ; saepe tibi pater est, saepe legend us avus. Tlie scheme, then, for the strophe as a whole is In the first colon spondees may take the place of dac- tyls. Unlike the dactylic hexameter, this verse allows a reader to pause for breath at the diaeresis between the cola. As a rule, the concluding word of the second colon in Ovid is a dissyllable. The word lengths of the first colon are usually made to differ from those of the second colon. The halves of the verse are sometimes bound together by two similar sounds falling one in the first colon and the other at a corresponding point in the second colon, as Hbera perpetucls ambulat ilia vios. ib. i, 122. /dit et in pratls fwxuriatque pecus. ib. i, 156. The same end is often attained by chiasmus or some other rhetorical figure whose elements fall partly in the first and partly in the second colon, as in officiumve forl militiaeve labor. ib. i, 302. summaque Peliacus sidera tangat apex -- 16, i, '><). The elegiac strophe was both imitated and described by Schiller in the following lines : Im Hexameter steigt des Springquells fliissige Saule, Iin Pentameter drauf fallt sie melodisch herab. DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER 61 This couplet was turned into English by Coleridge in his Ovidian Elegiac Meter : In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column, In the pentameter aye falling in melody back. Tennyson afterwards recast the same with a view of illus- trating more accurately the relations of ictus and word accent : Up springs hexameter with might, as a fountain arising, Lightly the fountain falls, lightly the pentameter. As here observed, the pentameter is by nature a clausula and the sense is likely to be completed at the end of each couplet. Hence elegiac poetry abounds in rapid, epigram- matic thought. Who invented this form of verse we can not say, any more than could Horace in his time : quis tarn en exiguos elegos emlserit auctor, grammatici certant et adhuc sub iudice lis est A .P. 77-78. Three periods, however, of full bloom may be traced in the long unbroken favor that it has enjoyed : the Ionic elegy of the seventh and sixth centuries before Christ, marked by Callinus, Tyrtseus, Mimnermus, Solon, Phocylides, Theognis, Xenophanes, Sirnonides of Amorgus, and others ; the Alexandrine elegy of the third century, marked by Callimachus, Philetas, Eratosthenes, Parthenius, and others; the Roman elegy, marked by Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, Martial, and others. 62 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY PKACTICAL HINTS ON BEADING LATIN POETRY 1. Read aloud constantly, striving to grasp and express the meaning. 2. Do not drop the voice at the end of a verse, unless the sense requires it. 3. Let the words fall into their proper sense groups. 4. The play of intonation should be in keeping with the thought. Let the voice take up the emphasis implied in prominently situated words, separation of nouns from modifiers, antitheses, and correlated expressions. 5. The word accent, involving increased stress and raised pitch, 1 should be sounded lightly. 6. The ictus, involving increased stress, should be lighter than the beat in English verse. The rhythm is not largely dependent upon it, being produced mainly by syllabic quantities. "\Vunl accent is a means of pointing the thought, and t<> that extent is free, while ictus points the rhythm, and so is bound. They are related as content is to form. 7. Utter words in such a way that a hearer may be left in no doubt as to the form and duration of each syllable. From the very outset the student should be accustomed to a consistent pronunciation of the Latin language, syllables being distinct and time values true. With this kind of training he will 1 W. M. Lindsay, The Latin Language, page 152; R. S. Radford, 44 Studies in Latin Accent and Metric," Trans. Am. Phil. Assoc., 1904. DACTYLIC HEXAMETER AND PENTAMETER 63 pass naturally and easily from prose to poetry. He will speak the words of a verse in the ordinary way and the rhythm will come largely unbidden. The proper time values of Latin words may be illustrated as follows : pater has the same duration as the last two syllables of luppiter; itaque the same as the last three syllables of peremptorily; similarly quln = cease, amo = meadow (if we may change the pronunciation slightly and sound it me'-do], prlml = seesaw, amlci = a May Day, rece- perunt = a low rowboat. 8. Make the quantities determine the rhythm, and not the rhythm the quantities. The only situations in which the rhythm should be relied upon to deter- mine the quantity are in the " variable syllables " (see pages 32 f.). 9. Do not overdo the rhythm. It is only an accom- paniment (see page 21). 10. Eead dactylic hexameter and pentameter verse in time, and not as students are often prone to do in | time. 11. Eead hi a somewhat measured, flowing manner. Poetry has more of a singing quality than prose. 1 1 Quintilian (i, 8, 1-2) has the following to say about reading poetry : " In this matter it is impossible, except in the course of practice itself, to teach a boy to know where he should check his breath, where he should divide a verse, where one thought ends and another begins, where the voice should be raised or lowered, what intonation belongs to each part, what should be uttered quickly and what slowly, what in an impassioned manner and what calmly. There is then but one thing that I can lay down on this subject, namely : if he Is to be able to do all these things, let him understand the 64 CLASSICAL LATIN POETRY 12. Commit to memory favorite passages and recite them until they convey the spirit of the literature. subject-matter. Furthermore, his reading should be vigorous. It should combine dignity with a certain pleasant appeal to the senses. Reading poetry should differ from reading prose, for the former is song and the poets say they sing ; on the other hand, it should not degenerate into singsong or be weakened, as is now the case with many people, by an affected modulation of the voice. There is a tra- dition that some one was once rendering a poem in this extreme style and that Gaius Caesar, then a boy, addressed to him a very happy remark, saying: ' If you are singing, you sing badly ; but if you think you are reading, the fact remains that you sing.' " INDEX acatalectic, 48 alliteration, 2; 13; 21 arsis, 45 assonance, 13 ; 21 caesura, 11; 40; 49; 56; main, 57; 58 catalectic, 48 clausula, 61 colon, 46 ; 54 ; 69 ; 60 consonant, 23 ; between vowels, 28 ; groups, 30 f . ; 40 ; 41 ; softening, 40 correlated expressions, 16 dactylic verse, hexameter, 49 ; 51 f . ; pentameter, 49 ; 69 f . diaeresis, 11 ; 46; 49; 56 ; bucolic, 57 dialysis, 38 diphthong, 23; resolution, 38 duosemic, 25 ecthlipsis, 3C elision, 33 f. ; 57 emphasis, iii ; 2 ; 62 feet, 24 ; 44 f. ; 54 f . half-elision, 37 hepthemimeral, 46 hiatus, 36 ; 37 f . ictus, 44 ; 54 f . ; 62 inter-verse elision, 36 inter-verse hiatus, 49 lengthening, 18; 25; 38, 8; 41, 14 ; 43, 16 and 16 ; 59 linking, 28 f . ; arrested, 43 liquids, 41 ; 43 measure, 48 meter, 8 monosemic, 26 mora, 24 mutes, 41 nasal elision, 36 pause, 10; 48; 59 penthemimeral, 46 poem, 3f.; 21; 46 quantity, 22 ; 63 ; archaic, 38 ; diminishing, 39 ; unsettled, 39 reading, If.; 62 f . rests, 10; 24 rhythm, accentual, 9; ascending, 45 ; auxiliary factors, 10 ; its complexity, 7 ; descending, 45 ; and ideas, 19 ; instinctive, 4 ; 17 ; and memory, 6 ; and meter, 8 f . ; in music, 6 (footnote) ; in prose, 21 ; quantitative, 10 rime, 13; 21 8, 42 ; 43 shortening, 18 ; 25 ; 33, I silence, 10 sound parallelism, 13 space (metrical), 24 66 66 INDEX stanzas, 50 stichic, 60 stops, 10 strophes, 46; 50; 59 syllable, 6 ; 22 ; aiiceps, 49 ; 64 ; closed, 26 ; 64 ; common, 41 ; long, 23 ; 30 ; open, 25 ; short, 23; 30; variable, 18; 32 f.; 63 synapheia, 36 syncope, 40 synizesis, 37 tetrasemic, 26 thesis, 46 time, 24 trisemic, 26 trithemimeral, 46 verse, 47 f . ; names, 48 ; spondaic, 64 f. vowel, 22 ; coupling, 37 ; harden- ing, 40 ; omission, 40 word accent, 66 ; 62 LIST OF IRREGULAR YEESES in Vergil's ^Eneid, i-vi, which are discussed in the foregoing pages i, 2 page 39 ; 40 ii, 417 page 39 iv, 667 page 38 16 " 38 442 " 40 686 " 40 26 " 40 492 " 40 30 " 43 663 " 44 v, 24 " 40 41 " 39 709 " 40 261 " 37 73 " 40 745 " 37 284 " 44 120 " 37 774 " 39 337 " 44 131 " 37 352 " 37 195 " 37 iii, 1 " 39 422 " 37 266 " 37 -) 48 " 39 432 " 40 258 " 40 74 " 38 621 " 39 308 " 39 91 " 43 689 " 40 332 " 37 112 " 44 663 " 40 343 " 40 136 " 40 697 " 40 348 " 40 211 " 37 735 " 38 405 " 38 346 " 40 763 " 37 448 " 37 396 " 39 853 " 39 456 " 478 " 489 " 499 " 557 " 617 " 34 44 39 39 40 38 464 " 678 " 602 " 606 " 681 ". 43 40 37 38 39 vi, 33 " 37 254 " 44 280 " 37 412 " 37 607 " 37 651 " 39 614 (egerimus). 668 " 44 iv, 64 " 44 See Latin 698 " 37 76 " 40 grammars : 726 " 37 126 " 40 A.&G.169, 146 " 42 d, n.; H. & ii, 16 " 40 168 " 40 B. 175, b 66 " 40 222 " 44 602 page 37 131 " 39 236 " 38 678 " 37 369 " 39 668 " 37 768 " 39 411 " 44 629 " 37 846 " 30 67 ANNOUNCEMENTS VIRGIL REVISED EDITION Edited by JAMES B. 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