Vergil 6:36-39
- Thread starter Callaina
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That's what my prof said as well; but I had thought that a third-foot feminine caesura seemed far more natural (as there is a break in the sense there as well.)
Incidentally, I just looked it up in Allen & Greenough, and they agree with me (citing this particular line as an example of a feminine caesura.)
I wasn't aware that a line could have that many caesuras.
The context was a quiz question, where he had asked us to scan this and the next line, "marking foot divisions and caesurae". What would you consider the correct answer to that question to be, then? All three caesuras? Or just the second/fourth-foot ones, or just the third-foot one?
(He ended up giving me the quiz point in the end, so this is really just for my own interest.)
Huh. In that case neither of us got it "right".
He's been teaching us to mark either one or two caesuras per line, but never more.
There's a difference between "strong caesuras" and "weak caesuras" on the one hand, and these and "the main caesura" on the other, as I'm sure you know. It would be helpful if we all strove to distinguish the two at all times, which we don't, and I include myself.Huh. In that case neither of us got it "right".
He's been teaching us to mark either one or two caesuras per line, but never more.
Sometimes, of course, you have several strong caesuras in a line (as well as weak caesuras) and it's impossible to say which caesura is the main caesura, which effectively means that there isn't one.
I think that "the main caesura" was what he was aiming for here, but I'm not entirely sure how to distinguish all of the above (and he certainly hasn't talked about it.)
A good resource: http://people.virginia.edu/~jdk3t/epicintrog/scansion.htm
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Judging by that link, it looks like there is some argument over your question:
Although I'm not sure I agree with all that's said in that link ... my personal approach (although not backed up by any scientific literature, just by my reading experience) would be:
(with examples from the Aeneid's prooemium)
1 - put the caesura in the 3rd foot if it has a strong caesura
urbs antiqua fuit // Tyrii tenuere coloni
2 - put 2 caesurae in the 2nd and 4th foot if the 3rd foot has a weak caesura and the 2nd and 4th have a strong one (which they usually do)
posthabita // coluisse Samo // hic illius arma
(in this line it's rather clear to me that there has to be a caesura after Samo; I can't find any other explanation as to why Samo and hic are not elided)
3 - (that may be a personal preference) put 2 caesurae in the 2nd and 4th foot if the strong caesura in the 3rd is elided:
impulerit. // tantaene animis // caelestibus irae?
4 - put the caesura in the 3rd feet if it has a weak caesura and you cannot put one in both the 2nd and 4th
Can't think of any line from the prooemium here, but it would apply to the example given in the link:
litora deseruere // latet sub classibus aquor
With that in mind, I would scan the lines differently than in the weblink:
I would scan it as
clamores // simul horrendos // ad sidera tollit
(2) see above
I see no problem with
saevior intus habet // sedem tum Tartarus ipse
(although when reading I would also pause after sedem a bit)
Thanks for that clarification, Bitmap.
Whenever I took a class where we read Latin poetry, we almost never had to mark the caesurae. As a result, I usually have a hard time pointing them out.
I remember taking a class on Plautus/Terence, and the professor just skipping over the meter entirely. None of us complained when we saw how variable it was.
Whenever I took a class where we read Latin poetry, we almost never had to mark the caesurae. As a result, I usually have a hard time pointing them out.
I remember taking a class on Plautus/Terence, and the professor just skipping over the meter entirely. None of us complained when we saw how variable it was.
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Bitmap
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Oh by the way, just to make that clear again: What I showed you up there was kind of my personal approach to hexametres that I could not fully back up by literature.
However, I've had another look in my tried and trusted grammar book (Rubenbauer-Hofmann, "RHH"), which has a small excursion into poetry as well, and it kind of supports my view (although not entirely). It says that the main caesura usually follows after the 3rd ictus (penthemimeres). It can also be after the 4th (hephthemimeres), but in that case it is usually accompanied by a secondary caesura after the 2nd (trithemimeres)
That kind of supports my view on scanning the line "saevior intus habet // sedem tum Tartarus ipse" because if it had a caesura after sedem, you would expect one in the 2nd foot as well - however, that would be in the middle of intus. So - in my eyes - it makes more sense to consider the penthemimeres to be the main caesura here.
It also says that a weak caesura after the 3rd foot is rather rare in Latin poetry:
fertur equis auriga // nequ(e) audit currus habenas
(it has to be a weak caesura in the 3rd foot here, because in the 4th foot it would be in the middle of audit)
I think you're better of explaining weak caesuras in different metres, where it's clearer and easier to understand where the caesura belongs ... like the Sapphic verse:
Ille mi par esse // deo videtur (weak)
Ille si fas est // superare divos (strong)
Does that mean you're never going to read Latin poetry again?
No, no, simply reading it is ok. But I'm just not going to bother analysing the meter and caesurae and all that complicated stuff I find no interest in, and I'm certainly not going to write Latin poetry.
I'm trying to figure out how this line scans:
dixit, et ante tulit gressum camposque nitentis
desuper ostentat; dehinc summa cacumina linquunt.
Are the two syllables of "dehinc" elided because of the "h" in the middle? That's the only way I can see to do it; otherwise, there's one too many syllables. I've never seen elision within a word, but of course that doesn't mean it's impossible...I guess.
dixit, et ante tulit gressum camposque nitentis
desuper ostentat; dehinc summa cacumina linquunt.
Are the two syllables of "dehinc" elided because of the "h" in the middle? That's the only way I can see to do it; otherwise, there's one too many syllables. I've never seen elision within a word, but of course that doesn't mean it's impossible...I guess.
dĕ-hinc (in the poets freq. monosyllabic, e. g. Verg. A. 1, 131; 1, 256; Ov. F. 6, 788 al.; cf. App. Orth. 45. Dissyllabic in Verg. G. 3, 167; id. A. 3, 464; 5, 722; id. Hor. S. 1, 3, 104; id. A. P. 144; Sil. 8, 473 al.).—