Latin poetry uses a series of long and short vowels to create the poem's rhythm. There are a couple of ways to decide if a vowel is long or short.
1. The vowel is marked long - dēducta. The e in deducta is what we call "long by nature". Your textbook will mark naturally long vowels with a macron (long mark).
2. The vowel is followed by two consonants. In the word deducta, the u would be considered long because it is followed by "ct".
a. the two consonants following the vowel do not have
to be in the same word. In the Latin phrase, queat tibi,
the "a" in queat would be long because it is followed
by two "t"s.
b. the consonants "x" and "z" function as double
consonants. Alone they will cause the preceding
vowel to be long.
c. some consonant melds will not always make the
preceding vowel long. Some examples are br, gr,
cl, ch, etc.
3. If the vowel is not considered long by the preceding rules, then it is short.
Let's look at one of Catullus' poems and see if we can mark the vowels as long or short. Remember that the naturally long vowels wil be marked by a macron; so you don't have to mark them.
Catullus 75 Text
The meter of poems 87, 96, 101, 109, and 116 is called elegiac couplets. Each line of the poetry consists of poetic divisions called feet. The feet are made up of one of two possible configurations - the dactyl or the spondee.
A dactyl is one long vowel followed by two short vowels. (- **)
A spondee is two long vowels.(- -)
The first line of an elegiac couplet has six feet (hexameter) made up of a combination of dactyls and spondees.
a. the last syllable of the hexameter line is always a spondee.
b. the fifth syllable of the hexameter line is almost always a dactyl.
If we separate the first line into feet, it would look like this:
Hūc ēst/ mēns dē/dūctă tŭ/ā mĕă/, Lēsbĭă/, cūlpā
You will notice that the line consists of six feet, the fifth foot is a dactyl, and the sixth foot is a spondee. This type of meter is called dactylic hexameter.
So what do these rhythms sound like? The easiest way for me to think about these feet is to relate them to Morse code. Morse code functions on a series of dashes and dots. The dashes are held longer than the dashes. Basically, two dots equal one dash. Many people know the Morse code for S.O.S., which is dash, dot dot, dash. If you verbalize this code, you will see that the dash is held twice as long as the dots. This is what long and short vowels do in Latin poetry. A long vowel is held twice as long as a short one. I will illustrate the way this sounds after we have examined the second line of our poem which is a little different from the dactylic hexameter line.
The pentameter line of the elegiac couplet consists of five metrical feet. Unlike the hexameter line, it is formed by the repetition of two full feet and one half foot. Below is how we would mark, or scan, the pentameter line (line 2) for Catullus 75.
ātque ita/ sē ōffici/ō// pērdidit/ īpsa su/ō,
If you examine this line, you will see that the final o in officio should begin a third foot, but the pentameter line leaves it as a half foot. Perdidit begins a new foot and the "half" foot is repeated at the end with the final o in suo.
There are things that you should notice about this line. One is the the double line that follows the final o in officio. This indicates a strong break in the line called a diaeresis. This pause is deliberate and is often used to emphasize the word that immediately precedes it. When scanning the pentameter line, you should always indicate the diaeresis.
The other thing to note in this line is the excess of syllables in the first and second foot. This apparent mistake is caused by a principle called elision. Elision occurs when a word that ends in a vowel (or m) is followed by a word that begins with a vowel (or h). The preceding vowel is "swallowed" by the following vowel. N.B. the u in qu does not count as a vowel and the combination should always be considered a single consonant. According to this rule, the first and second feet would look more like this:
ātquita/sōffici/ō//
Marking elision is an essential part of scanning a line of poetry. You don't want to eliminate the vowels from the text (that would prove confusing when trying to translate), but you should indicate an elision by a curved line linking the two vowels from underneath. The fully scanned line of the pentameter would look like this:
Now that we know all the basics of scanning a line of poetry, you should scan the remaining two lines of the poem. When you are finished, check your work by clicking on the link below and compare your scansion.
Catullus 75 Marked
The next step is to read the poem in meter. The link below is an audio file that demonstrates how the meter of this poem sounds. The example is slow and very deliberate so that you can get a feel for how the meter works.
Catullus 75 Reading
Do not get discouraged as you try to master the meter of the elegiac couplet, it can be difficult, but once you get the hang of it, it can be a lot of fun. Once you feel confident with the meter of poem 75, read the five other poems in the unit that you have scanned.
Below is another audio file of a reading of the elegiac couplet from the poetry of Ovid. It is included here to help you appreciate the beauty of the poetry, not to suggest that you should be able to read the poetry this well in your first attempts. Enjoy!
Ovid Reading
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