Let's take a
random line of
Latin poetry.
impulerit. Tantæne animis cælestibus iræ?
Knowing that it's in dactylic hexameter, we know a few absolute rules about this line:
- The line will have six feet.
- Each foot will be either a dactyl (-^^) or a spondee (--).
- The last two feet will be a dactyl and a spondee (-^^|--).
- The very first syllable will be long (-), no matter what the first foot is.
Here's what we have now:
|- |- ^ ^ | - - |
|impulerit. tantæne animis cæl|estibus | iræ?|
Right out of the gate, we need to look for
elisions. Elision is the process of "leaving out" the last sound of a word and combining it with the first sound of the next. You elide two words if:
- the first word ends in a vowel or the letter m AND
- the next word begins with a vowel or the letter h.
Do we have any elisions in this line? Yes indeedy: "tantæne" and "animis" are going to elide. Here's how the line looks now:
|- |- ^ ^ | - - |
|impulerit. tantæn(e) animis cæl|estibus | iræ?|
How do the remaining syllables scan? Let's find out.
A syllable is long if:
- it's a diphthong (like æ or oe);
- it's a vowel followed by two consonants (even if the second consonant is in a different word);
- it's long by nature (the i in pueri, the i in hi).
Let's see what syllables we can mark long:
|- - - - | - - |- ^ ^ | - - |
|impulerit. tantæn(e) ani|mis cæl|estibus | iræ?|
From here on in, the line scans itself.
Everything that we haven't marked as
long is
short. Final product:
|- ^ ^|- -| - ^ ^| - - |- ^ ^ | - - |
|impulerit. tantæn(e) ani|mis cæl|estibus | iræ?|
Tune in next week for
Elegaic couplets.