A companion to Latin studies.

  • John Edwin Sandys
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A companion to Latin studies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    884/940 (page 840)
    dactylic (hexameters or parts of hexameters). Trochaic measures are less used in lyric; but see Horace Ocle ii 18, vv. i, 3, 5, etc. In the fine rhetre of Horace Ode i 4, — WW — \j \j — \j soluitur acris h i- ems gra- ta nice ueris et Fa- — \j — \j — \j tra- hunt que siccas machi- nae ca- rinas and so on alternately, the first verse has four dactylic feet followed by three trochees (or four trochees, if each of the last two syllables be prolonged to the length of a foot, thus | uo-\ni; see above on Asclepiads). Such a combination of dactylic measure and trochaic may be read (or sung) either in 3-time or 4-time, but one time must be carried throughout. The second verse is iambic. In 4-time the couplet will run thus (each foot being equal to ^^ ^ ^ j^) I ^1 I J[orJU] and in 3-time thus (writing ^ for i, ^ for the half of and 1^ for li) 1 h 1 r« 1 ^ ^ ^ In Epode 16, altera iam ieriiur bellis ciuilibus aetas, sids et ipsa Roma uiribus ruit and so on alternately, the second verse of the couplet is always 'pure' iambic, that is to say, the quantities w-w — w~w — w — w^ admit no choice except in the final syllable. The preservation of this difficult form through 33 couplets, useless if the iambics are to be read like those of Ode i 4 (above), suggests that the measure intended (a very fine one) is this (3-time, each foot = J J J):— I ^ I ^ i The Glyconic metre of Catullus Ixi, Cdllis \ O JIeB-\cdm-\i | etc., com- posed of dactyls and trochees, is closely akin to the Sapphic and the Asclepiad. 1234. A word must be said on Ionic metre, for the sake of one poem Ionic Metre. by CatuUus. It is a slow 6-time measure, each foot being GaiUambic. equal to 6 ' shorts ' and consisting normally of — w w (2 + 2