Sometimes the break occurs after the second beat of the third foot (which must be a dactyl), giving a kind of syncopated feel to the line. Iam super oceanum / vĕnit a seniore marito ( Am. In addition, the hexameter line almost always has a break between words in the third foot, most commonly after the first beat (whether of dactyl or spondee). The first four feet can be any combination of dactyls and spondees, and it is here that a knowledge of prosody becomes important. it can be either long or short, but for practical purposes the lines can all be read as if the last beat is long) thus each line can be expected to end - u u ∕. In the dactylic line the fifth and sixth feet are almost always a dactyl and a spondee (the last beat of each line is technically anceps, i.e. five dactyls or spondees (with one of the spondees divided into two). six dactyls (- u u) or spondees (-), followed by a line of dactylic pentameter, i.e. This meter consists of a line of dactylic hexameter, the meter of epic poetry, i.e. The Amores are all written in elegiac couplets. This occurs even if the elided vowel would have been long. However, a vowel cannot remain short when the two consonants following it belong to different parts of a compound ( *ābrupit), or to different words ( et refer).Ī further complication in reading aloud is the fact that a vowel or a vowel + m at the end of a word is usually suppressed (“elided”) when the next word begins with a vowel, or h + a vowel. TEHL-Lus). More generally, a short syllable can be long by position when followed by any two (or more) consonants together, or by x and z, which were each the equivalent of two consonants.īut before the following combinations of consonants the preceding short vowel can remain short:īl, br cl, chl, cr, chr dr fl, fr gl, gr pl, pr tr, thr. Other syllables with easily identifiable quantities are those which though short by nature, becomes long by position because of the consonants that follow them. The most obvious instances are when vowels are followed by double consonants ( ll, mm, nn, pp, ss etc.), and such words are also the easiest for a reader to speak correctly in Latin there was a clear difference between the L-sounds in malus and tellus, and it is easy to make this distinction aloud once alerted to it (MAL-us vs. On the other hand the endings of Latin words provide us with a large collection of easily learned quantities: with a review of the basic declensions and conjugations it is not difficult to learn that the o of amō is long, and that the i and of trādit is short, or that the ō and īs of puerō and puerīs are long, or the first ī of mīlitibus is long while the second and third i’s are short. In such cases it is almost impossible to scan the line without also establishing its sense. Much more common are the words whose form is identified only by their quantity: amīcitia can be nominative singular or ablative singular, cīvis can be nominative or genitive singular or accusative plural, and manus can be nominative singular or nominative or accusative plural, etc. Latin has a number of virtual homonyms, distinguished only by their quantity, such as lěvis ('light') and lēvis ('smooth'). Ideally we would all know, say, that the first syllable of miles was long and the second one short, but in practice we are often uncertain, or even wrong, and it sometimes necessary to consult a dictionary solely to ascertain the quantities of a word.Īn additional problem is that it is often necessary to know the meaning of a Latin word before one can know its prosody.

All diphthongs are normally long by nature, but individual vowels can be either long or short, though a vowel followed by another vowel not in a diphthong is normally short.

Whereas English meters are based on a word's accent ('Múch have I trávelled in the reálms of góld”), Latin meters are based on quantity what matters most is whether syllables are long or short.įor most of us the obstacle to reading Latin verse aloud is that we have not learned the quantities of Latin very well. Raven, Latin Metre: an Introduction (Cambridge, 1965). Since the Amores may well be among the first Latin poems a student encounters, it may be helpful to provide a brief introduction to the rules of Latin prosody (the quantity of individual syllables) and to the reading aloud of elegiac couplets. Prosody | Eli sion | The Elegiac Couplet | Reading Aloud

Iliad scansion