As his own free gift: sui muneris. The gods pour down their vengeance on so many perjuries: diis tot perjuria vindicantibus.... Every improvement of human genius: omnem ingenii cul tum. To prove by the most convincing reasons: gravissimis rationibus evincere. To feel the breast glow with the warmest zeal: incredibili studio rapi. To leave off childish plays: relinquere nuces pueris. To make an impression on the senate: senatum com movere. To take a magnificent view of one's self: se magnificè circumspicere. To store the memory with an immense mass of....immensam....copiam memoria comprehendere. Words removed from common usage: verba a communi usu abducta. Inelegantly coined by themselves. a se inconcinnè confictis. To steal Cicero's invectives against Catiline: Ciceronis Catilinarias compilare. Drawn by motives of duty: aliquá officii ratione adductus. More perniciously prodigal : perditiùs prodigum. To be saved from the gallows: e furca redimi. Το pay one's debts: nomina liberare. To break open the seal: linum incidere. To feel a thirst for glory, and passion for fame: appetens gloria, atque avidus famæ. A stain contracted in the war: macula bello suscepta. An indelible blot on the reputation of the Roman people macula, quæ inveteravit in populi Romani nomine. PROSODY. SCANNING. Scanning is the dividing of a verse into the feet of which it is composed, and the assigning of their proper quantity to the constituent syllables in each foot. A foot in poetry consists of two or more syllables, connected and arranged according to established rules, and forming part of a verse. The principal feet in Latin poetry are the spondee and the dactyle. A spondee consists of two long syllables; as, Sylvas: a dactyle consists of one long and two short syllables; as, temporă. A verse is a certain number of connected feet, forming a line of poetry. The verses in the most general use in ancient poetry are the hexameter and the pentameter. Verses are not measured in the ancient languages, as they are in our own, by the number of their syllables, but generally by the number of their feet, or the length of time required for their pronunciation: hence the versification of the Greeks and Romans admits of a much greater degree of variety and harmony, than the regular heroic measures in English poetry. HEXAMETER. A hexameter verse consists of six feet, of which the sixth is a spondee, the fifth a dactyle, and the preceding four either dactyles or spondees; as, Sunt her bæ dulcēs sūnt | quæ mitēscĕrě | flammā. This kind of verse is generally used in poems which are designed to be descriptive of great and splendid actions, and is consequently sometimes called heroic verse. It is the most ancient of all poetical measures, as well as the most dignified and harmonious. The use of the hexameter is not, however, confined to epic and heroic poetry. The satires and epistles of Horace are sufficient to prove that it is a measure no less adapted to the most familiar, than it is to the most exalted subjects. A spondee is sometimes found in the fifth foot of a hexameter, instead of a dactyle, and gives to the line the name of a spondaic verse; as, Proximus huic lōngō sed proximus | inter vällō. When a spondee is substituted for a dactyle in the fifth foot of a hexameter, to prevent the line from appearing to move too heavily, the fourth foot is generally a dactyle. It must always be observed in scanning, that when a word ending in a vowel or the consonant m is immediately followed by a word be ginning with another vowel, or the aspirate h, an elision of the preceding vowel generally takes place, and the final syllable of the word is not scanned nor counted in the line; thus, in the three verses which immediately follow, the syllables printed in italics are not considered as forming any part of a foot; Obsta batque aliis ǎliud quiă | corpore în | unō. Mōllia | cum dūrīs sině | pōndĕre hǎ bēntiă | pōndūs. The lines in the first two of the following exercises are already divided into feet, so that the scanning of them will be completed by marking, and proving, by rules, the quantity of their syllables: the other lines must be divided, as well as marked and proved. EXERCISES. 1. Aurea prima sălta est æltas, quæ, vindice | nullo, Sponte sulâ, sinè | lege fidem rectumque collebat. 2. Judicis ora suli sed erant sinè | vindice | tuti. Nondum cæsa sulis peregrinum ut | viseret | orbem 3. Nondum præcipites cingebant oppida fossæ ; Non tuba directi, non æris cornua flexi, 4. Non găleæ, non ensis erant ; sinè militis usu, Mollia securæ perăgebant otia gentes. 5. Ipsa quoque immūnis, rastroque intacta, nec ullis Saucia võměribus, per se dăbat omnia tellus. 6. Contentique cibis, nullo cogente, creatis, PENTAMETER. A Pentameter verse is generally divided in scanning into two parts, the first of which consists of two feet, which are either dactyles or spondees, followed by a long syllable; the latter part is always composed of two dactyles, followed by another long syllable; as, Ipse ju bēt mortis | të měmi nissě Dělūs. This is the most common, but not the most correct mode of scanning this species of verse. A pentameter properly consists, as its name implies, of five feet, of which the first two are either dactyles or spondees, the third a spondee, and the fourth and fifth anapæsts, or dactyles reversed. Agreeably to this division, the last of the preceding lines would be scanned thus, Sit nōx | cum sōm|nō sīt | sĭně līļtě dĭēs. This kind of verse is sometimes termed elegiac, because it is generally employed by the poets in elegiac and similar compositions. It is, however, seldom or never used alone in a poem, but is intermixed with hexameters, and sometimes with other measures. In the exercises in this work, and, indeed, in poetry in general, a pentameter may be distinguished from a hexameter verse by the first word being printed somewhat within the boundary of the page, and consequently not beginning in a line with the other verses; thus, in the exercises, which immediately follow, every alternate line is a pentameter; the others are hexameters. EXERCISES. 1. Quæ legis ex illo, Theseu, tibi littore mitto, Unde tuam sinè me vela tulêre ratem. 2. Tempus erat, vitreâ quo primùm terra pruinâ Spargitur, et tectæ fronde queruntur aves. 3. Luna fuit: specto si quid nisi littora cernam ; Quod videant, oculi nil nisi littus habent. 4. Nunc huc, nunc illuc, et utròque sinè ordine curro ; Mons fuit; apparent frutices in vertice rari; 5. Ascendo; vires animus dabat; atque ita latè Inde ego, nam ventis quoque sum crudelibus usa, VERSIFICATION. CÆSURA. Cæsura is a division or separation of a foot, occasioned by the syllables, of which it is composed, belonging to different words it is a term applied also to the last syllable or two last syllables of a word, when they form the first part of a foot. The word cæsura is derived from cado, casus, to cut off: its use has been adopted in versification either because the syllable, to which it is applied, is divided or cut off from the other syllables in the word by the termination of the preceding foot, or because the foot, in which the cæsura takes place, is divided or separated, being composed of syllables belonging to different words. The beauty of a verse depends in a great measure on the cæsura. It connects with each other the different words, of which the line is composed, and gives to it smoothness and harmony. It must not therefore be considered merely as an ornament, but as an essential requisite of every hexameter and pentameter verse. A line in which it is neglected is not only destitute of all poetic beauty, but can hardly be distinguished from prose, and, unless on peculiar occasions, in which harmony is designedly avoided, is not admissible in Latin poetry. |
