Questions tagged [scansion]
For questions about scansion, or rhythmic reading of poetry.
48 questions
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How common is the caesura in Latin hexameter?
What percentage of classical Latin hexameter verses have a caesura?
Any kind of partial answer, as in the percentage for the third book of the Aeneid, would be very welcome.
In fact, I suppose the ...
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Dactylic hexameter composition feedback
I was writing dactylic hexameter and was wondering if this sentence classified as dactylic hexameter. If somebody could check it that would be greatly appreciated. I think it would be "DDDSDS&...
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scansion of Eneid, 1.203 (...Forsan et haec ōlim meminisse iuuābit.)
I fail to scan line 1.203 of the Aeneid. Where should I place the pause?
1.202... mæstum timōrem
1.203 Mittite; forsan et haec ōlim meminisse iuuābit.
My translation:
Banish your sadness and fear; ...
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Last two feet of line II.355 of the Aeneid
Book II, line 355 of the Aeneid:
Sīc animīs iuvenum furor additus. Inde—lupī ceu
(Thus rage was added to the spirits of the young men. From there, like wolves [and the sentence continues in the next ...
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How to scan "ac veluti magno in populo ..."?
In Virgil's Aeneid there is the following line:
ac veluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est
and I am trying to figure out how to scan it. The first thing is that I thought the "a" in ac ...
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How would "Eurystheus" be scanned in Ovid's Metamorphoses?
I was doing some scansion exercises on hexameter.co and this line (Ovid's Metamorphoses IX: Line 274) was brought up:
"solverat Eurystheus, odiumque in prole paternum"
I scanned the first 4 ...
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Having trouble understanding the scansion for the second line of the Aeneid
I've just begun to learn scansion, and I'm using the Aeneid to practice - sadly, I'm stuck on line two ("Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit"). To make a long story short, I ended up ...
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Principal caesura in unus erat toto line I.6 of Ovid's Metamorphoses
I am scanning Ovid's metamorphoses. For the line "unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe," I have - - | - - | - - | - ' ' | - ' ' | - x. There doesn't seem to be an obvious position for the ...
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"Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori" -- why "et nos" and not "nos et"?
In a comment Sebastian brought to my attention that in Virgil's famous verse: Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori, the syllable o in amor (or or(?); since according to the cited Wiki article it ...
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Dactylic hexameter: can we tell on the run if it is long truning to short or vice versa
In Latin poetry it is sometimes the case that a long vowel should be taken as short, and sometimes a short should be taken as long. For example in the third verse of De Rerum Natura, we have:
...
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What are the ways in which Greek print might indicate diaeresis?
When two vowel letters that normally form a diphthong, such as αι, are meant to be pronounced as two syllables, how is this normally indicated in modern printing of Ancient Greek?
Is a trema ever used,...
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How do I scan the hexameter "faunique satyrique et monticolae silvani"? (From Metamorphoses I, 193)
I was wondering if anyone knows how to scan this hexameter (complete source here https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Metamorphoses_(Ovidius)/Liber_I). Something that is usually short definitely needs to be ...
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Scanning a sotadean verse in Petronius
I'm not able to figure out what meter this is in this poem by Petronius. In Schmelling's unparalleled commentary on the work he merely says:
Four lines of Sotadean verse (used for obscenities) sung ...
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Did Greek ever have long initial consonants?
In this other answer, TKR suggests that the Homeric dative οἱ might have once been something like *ϝϝοι, with initial long [wː]. This makes sense to me, etymologically, since it may have come from a ...
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Why does οἱ make position?
Iliad XXII.307:
τό οἱ ὑπὸ λαπάρην τέτατο μέγα τε στιβαρόν τε
Since it's at the beginning of a hexameter, τό needs to scan heavy. And since omicron is always short by nature, it must be heavy by ...
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