APPENDIX I. THE VERSIFICATION OF CATULLUS. A. More than a third of Catullus' poems are written in the HENDECASYLLABIC metre. This metre is ascribed to the invention and known by the name of PHALAECUS, and one epigram of his is extant in the Anthology. It was used by Sappho, Anacreon, and (mixed with other metres) by Callimachus and Theocritus. It is the metre of part of the Athenian drinking-song: ἐν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος φορήσω. There are about 542 hendecasyllables in Catullus, and the scheme is: (a) (B) (2) The poems written in this metre are I.-III., V.-VII., IX., X., XII.-XVI., XXI., XXIV., XXVII., XXVIII., XXXII., XXXIII., XXXV., XXXVI., XXXVIII., XL.-XLIII., XLIV.-L., LIII.-LVIII. (a) is by far the commonest form, and is rigidly followed by the only other great master of hendecasyllables, Martial. (B) occurs about 33 times: I., VI. (?), XXI., XXXII. (bis), XXXV. (bis), XXXVI. (bis), XXXVII. (bis), XL., XLI. (bis), XLII. (septies), XLV. (quater), XLVII, XLIX. (bis), L., LIV., LVII. (y) occurs also 33 times: I., II., III., XII., XXVI. (bis), XXXII. (quater), XXXV. (ter), XXXVI. (ter), XXXVIII. (bis), XL. (bis), XLI. (bis), XLII. (ter), XLV. (ter), XLIX. (bis), LIII., LIV., LV. In LV. after the base (or first foot) a spondee is found, in place of the usual dactyl, in 15 vv. One verse (XL. 1) is perhaps hypermetrical: but v. note. B. IAMBICS. (i.) There are in Catullus 55 TRIMETERS (IV., XXIX., LII.), in which the pure iambic foot alone is used, with the exception of LII. 2, 3, both of which verses begin with a spondee. The tribrach in XXIX. 23 (4th foot) is almost certainly a false reading. In IV., XXIX. the coincidence of verbal and metrical accent is remarkable (except IV. 5, 6, 9, XXIX. 15, 21). Caesura see (iii.) below. For (ii.) One poem (xxv.) is composed of Iambic TETRAMETERS CATALECTIC, in which vv. 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, have a spondee in the first place, and vv. 5, 13 a spondee in the fifth place, or rather first place of the second half of the verse. = (iii.) In the SCAZON or CHOLIAMBIC ( 'Limping Iambic') metre of Hipponax, employed by Callimachus and Theocritus, but little used by Latin poets before Catullus, are written VIII., XXII., XXXI., XXXVII., XXXIX., XLIV., LIX., LX.-in all 131 vv. The pure scheme occurs only 13 times; 29 vv. have a spondee in the first place, 13 vv. have a spondee in the third place, and 74 a spondee in both first and third places. A tribrach , allowed by Martial in the third or fourth place, is only found once (XXII. 19) in the second place; and once (LIX. 3) the third foot is a dactyl. In XXXVII. 5 the first foot is a spondee (confütvere),' not a dactyl (confùtuere). 'In Catullus' iambics and scazons, which have the hepthemimcral caesura, the end of the second foot must coincide with the end of a word.' (Munro.) IV. 4, XXIX. 22 are only apparent exceptions, for there the preposition is separable from the verb. C. GLYCONEO-PHERECRATEAN. (i.) The PRIAPEAN2 metre is a system (= stanza) composed of 1 This was kindly pointed out to me by Mr. Munro. 2 Inscriptions on the images of the garden-god, Priapus, were written in this metre. Of such Priapea a specimen, ascribed (but improbably) to Catullus, is subjoined: CARMEN XIX. Hunc ego, juvenes, locum villulamque palustrem Quercus arida rustica conformata securi, Nutrivi magis et magis ut beata quotannis. Hujus nam domini colunt me deumque salutant The syn one glyconic followed by one pherecratean verse. apheia is observed, i.e., there is no metrical pause between the end of the first and the beginning of the second verse, and so, should a glyconic end with a vowel, the vowel must be elided, if the pherecratean open with a vowel. This system, in which XVII. (26 vv.) is composed, is generally printed as one long line-but see on (ii.) and (iii.) below. The scheme is Pherecratean. Glyconic. In this poem, however, the base (or first two syllables, or first foot) of the glyconic is a spondee in 9 cases; that of the pherecratean, also, is twice a spondee. (ii.) In xxxiv. (24 vv.) three glyconics precede the pherecratean, and the synapheia is observed throughout the system. The base of the glyconic is 8 times spondaic, thrice iambic; that of the pherecratean is once iambic. (iii.) The epithalamium (LXI.) is composed in a system of four glyconics and a pherecratean, in which of course the synapheia is observed. The apparent exceptions to the law of the synapheia, in which a vowel or short syllable precedes 'Io Hymen Hymenaee io' are removed by the pronunciation of the first io as 'yo,' which is more than probably correct. In v. 223 omnibus ends the verse, and the next begins with a vowel: but Catullus may have followed ancient usage in making the final syllable long, or (more probably) such an emendation as the interchange of insciis and omnibus, or the substitution of obviis for omnibus is required, in this, the only exceptional case in 235 vv. It is to be remarked also that the name 'Aurunculeia' is divided between two glyconics. The base of the glyconic is 13 or 14 times a spondee, that of the Alter assidua colens diligentia ut herba pherecratean is twice so. One pherecratean (v. 25) replaces the usual dactyl by a spondee. D. Catullus has written two Sapphic poems (XI., LI. = 40 vv.), and follows the original metre; so differing from Horace who elaborated for himself an almost rigid system, capable of few variations.1 Comparing LI. with the original poem of Sappho, we find that Sappho twice begins a verse with trochaic syzygy (———~), Catullus once (13); three times ends a verse with a trochee, Catullus twice; twice breaks up a word between the third verse and the Adonic (which concludes the system, Catullus never; nine times she has caesura after a later syllable than the fifth, Catullus twice; thrice ends a verse with a monosyllable, and Catullus thrice. In XI. he begins a verse with a trochaic syzygy twice, once ends a verse with a trochee, three times divides a word between two verses, and eight times has the late caesura. Hence we may fairly conclude that the scheme of both Sappho and Catullus admitted two forms, of which (a) alone is Horatian; that both preferred (or at least freely admitted) the late caesura, which is much rarer in Horace; that the monosyllabic ending, so much avoided by Horace, was not unwelcome to them; and that synapheia, and the consequent division of a word between two verses (of which only three examples are found in Horace), was normal with them. Like the hexameter, therefore, in the hands of Virgil, the Sapphic under Horace's treatment seems to have been Romanised-that is to say, to have become less elastic and more regular; but the lyric metre suffered much more and gained much less than the epic metre in its admission to the Latinitas.' E The CHORIAMBIC metre (Sapphic sixteen-syllable, or greater Asclepiad), employed by Sappho and Alcaeus, and, after Catullus, once or twice by Horace-who, as usual, more rigidly, requires the end of the two first choriambi to coincide with the end of a word is only represented by xxx. The It is to be remarked, however, that Horace's later Sapphics are much freer than the earlier. verse consists of a dissyllabic base (a spondee, except in v. 9, where it is a trochee), followed by three choriambs, and ended by two short syllables. The scheme is F. The 'Attis' (LXIII.) is written in a metre which seems to have been peculiar to poems of which the subject was the worship of Cybele. This metre, with less than his usual success in his imitations of classical metres (unfortunately so brief), has been employed by the Poet Laureate in 'Boadicea.' But the failure is more than pardonable, for the origin and development of the verse are still wrapped in obscurity. We are told by Hephaestion our great metrical authority—that the system originally consists of an Ionic Tetrameter Catalectic, and that its name GALLIAMBIC has arisen from its special employment. The simple scheme would then be If, Such a verse, however, is not found in this poem. however, we replace the Ionic a minore by an Ionic a majore in the first and third place, thus: we can scan v. 18; and this suggests a clue. Granting that two short syllables may be the metrical equivalent of one long syllable, and vice versa, we obtain the following scheme, which will scan every line : 1. 2. a 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Thus the first half of vv. 1, 2, 3, answers to a, scheme 5; the second half to 6, scheme 3: v. 77 answers wholly to scheme 3: v. 22 to scheme 2: and so on. One difficulty remains. This metre is said to be subject to anaclasis. The exact force of this word is still a subject of conjecture; but in this usage |