Talk:Dactylic hexameter

This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

"Heart Beat Poetry". ABC News. July 28, 2004.

Could someone add transliteration from the greek on the page? I know some greek letters, but not enough to read it, and I hate coming across something in another language I can't even pronounce when I'm reading. It breaks things up and makes it harder to analyze if I can't pronounce what I'm seeing. Bobbias (talk) 19:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hesitate to make statements about how common thy terminology is, but I can say that all of the noteworthy poets at least one prominent United States university use the terms "stressed" and "unstressed" rather than "long" and "short." I haven't thought of a way to add the other terms without making the entry unwieldy, so I'll leave it to your discretion. :-) --Koyaanis Qatsi

stressed & unstressed are right for English, but Greek and Latin poetry work somewhat differently -- though they both HAD syllable stress, the poetry is better thought of in terms of sung music with the lengths of notes. Greek also had pitch, but that's a different matter and not perfectly understood, anyway. So, think of long syllables as half notes and short syllables as quarter notes and you're not too far off - and it will help you remember that the poetry was mean to be performed orally even when it was composed on the page. This system was somewhat artificial for Latin and had been adopted wholesale from Greek metrics, but it worked. We should distinguish this on the entry. --MichaelTinkler

You're right; I was thinking only of English; and it's best to keep that distinction. I have no experience with Greek or Latin poetry, aside from reading them in mediocre to good translations; I think I'll defer to you. --KQ

What about "heavy" and "light"? Some academics use these terms to avoid confusion with vowel length (long vowels [or diphthongs] make a syllable heavy but short ones don't necessarily make it light).

Also, can anyone vouch for the reasoning given for the ill repute of the Cicero line? I thought it had more to do with the cacophonous repetition of the syllables "natam" (and the unbelievably arrogant sentiment). Ou tis 23:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the terms heavy and light. And I agree with you about Cicero. Overuse of spondees was bad, and their use in both of the first two feet in a line was generally frowned upon. But the heavily spondaic line was admissable and even preferable in certain circumstances - an author might wish, for example, to create a sort of spoken equivalent of a dramatic pause - and I think it's alright in this Cicero line provided he didn't do it too often (which he didn't). Cicero's metrical style is usually condemned as forced and repetitive, containing technically proficient lines but with little enjambment or interesting variation in word order, metre or placement of hiatus. In fact Cicero seems to have established many of the conventions used by later poets. For really bad lines look to Ennius where there are examples of almost everything that was avoided by the later poets.--Lo2u 15:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

is there any way we can hear these?[edit]

are there english and greek examples online, that could give foreigners a rough idea how they should sound?

Unicode notation?[edit]

Instead of using the clumsy use of "U" to denote two-shorts-or-one-long, we could use Unicode to get the proper signs, like this:

–⏕ | –⏕ | –⏕ | –⏕ | –⏑⏑ | –⏓

However, while this looks fine to me, I suspect some may lack the proper fonts and get squares or something else instead of the intended signs, so I'm a bit wary of making the edit. Are there guidelines for things like this? Alatius 20:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I get squares, I imagine this is a common problem -- might be best to either go back to "U" or create an image of it.118.71.10.146 (talk) 06:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Better Arrangement and Explanation[edit]

Several comments regarding the caesura were incorrect, and the section on the Greek was very thin. I thought I'd clean this article up to show the point of many of these rules regarding word placement, caesura, etc. and thereby underscore the counterpoint between accentual and metric rhythm which is a hallmark of dactylic hexameter.

In contrast to Homeric epic, Latin epic is highly rhetorical, and the meter plays an important role. Virgil is particularly important in this trend so I thought it was fair to expand this section and explain how the meter can be used to create verbal effects. I also just had to include the quote from Horace; though comical in its own right, it also shows how seriously these rules--which seem rather artificial in the modern age-- were taken by Roman writers.

The hexameter was also employed by late Latin and Medieval writers, sometimes with unusual results; I thought a mention of these variations was worthwhile (Latin poetry did not end with Virgil).

I also added some links to sound files I saw on-line. chjones_60656

Digamma[edit]

There are two places in Iliad I.108, I believe, which show the influence of the lost digamma. The first is at the third foot caesura, where there is now a hiatus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seadowns (talk • contribs) 10:47, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Metamorphoses and De Rerum Natura[edit]

Ovid used this form in this famous work. Should it not be mentioned? - Tbsdy lives (talk) 12:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lucretius definitely also needs a mention.

Added Metamorphoses. 108.69.134.228 (talk) 09:46, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Humanist Latin Poets[edit]

I think the article brushes aside the humanist poets too easily. There was a really remarkable output of hexameter verse by people such as Vida, Politian, Pontanus, Fracastor, Naugerius, Palearius, to name some Italians alone. If not the highest poetry, they showed an amazing virtuosity in their command of Latin. A good place to find them, recommended by Henry Hallam, is Pope's anthology Selecta Poemata Italorum Qui Latine Scripserunt.  Seadowns (talk) 09:44, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bridges[edit]

Is the description of "Meyer's bridge" in the article correct?

The first, known as Meyer's Bridge, is in the second foot: if the second foot is a dactyl, the two short syllables must be part of the same word-unit.

As stated, this seems to be violated by the opening lines of the Iliad and the Aeneid both:

μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

As far as I understand the quoted rule, it says that the word break between "ἄειδε" and "θεά" is not allowed, nor is the one between "virumque" and "cano". Neither does the English verse

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks

follow the rule. If it is as universal as it is implied, shouldn't the article contain more examples that actually respect it? –Henning Makholm (talk) 15:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This stuff about bridges should be left out. Any value it may have would be too advanced for a rudimentary article like this. Also, is a word-unit something different from a word? Seadowns (talk) 00:37, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It isn't an essential part of the description of a hexameter, in view of the fact that the very first line of the Iliad contradicts it. I will delete the paragraph. Kanjuzi (talk) 06:02, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Caesuras[edit]

The statement that a caesura is a break in sense, rather like a comma, is incorrect. It is the end of a word, which may or may not coincide with a break in sense. Seadowns (talk) 18:42, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right. I have changed it. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:21, 30 August 2017 (UT

I suggest cutting out the last two sentences of the paragraph.. The last but one is unimportant, if true. The last one has no meaning that I can find. Is there an example of what it is trying to say? Seadowns (talk) 00:29, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The line from Horace, without a proper caesura in the third or fourth foot, follows a permissible pattern, if I remember correctly. In this pattern the second foot has to be a dactyl, with a break after the long and the two shorts in one word, and, I had thought, it had to end in an elision, though this one doesn't. Composers ought to stick to the elision I think. Here is an example from a modern composer -"cingebant nemora herbosos in sole recessus", showing the elision. Seadowns (talk) 13:43, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar First, then Poetry[edit]

"The sixth foot is always a spondee, though it may be anceps". "Always" means forever, permanently... there should be no "though" as "always" is an absolute; never varied. Please fix it whom is better then I at poetry. 108.38.36.17 (talk) 23:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bolded note?[edit]

I have no idea why the second note on this page is written in bold text. I've tried looking at the page but can't seem to figure it out. Anybody else know? 23:12, 23 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.4.35.41 (talk)

English hexameter[edit]

English metrical form relies on stress, not quantity. The vowel sound in 'pig' is not made longer by having two consonants after it. Pamour (talk) 21:47, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this one does say it's in quantitative meter, and I think it does a good job at demonstrating how that would feel in English. But you are right, there is a piglet in the ointment. To fix that, you could pronounce the g syllabically (or as guh), start the m sound early (pigm-), insert an a- prefix (a-munching) - or perhaps replace the pig with a boar. But I do like it the way it is. Perhaps the word break gives it some brevis in longo allowance? 81.159.72.169 (talk) 17:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The deep dark dell line can be read as in stress metre too. It is the first line of an elegiac couplet, and the pentameter reads "Out of her mouth came forth yesterday's dinner and tea". I don't know the poet's name. Seadowns (talk) 10:53, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ennius's spondees[edit]

"The following lines of Ennius would not have been felt admissible by later authors since they both contain repeated spondees at the beginning of consecutive lines..." But this isn't actually true, since for example Virgil writes in Dido's curse, in consecutive lines (Aeneid 4.607f):

Sol, qui terrarum flammis opera omnia lustras,

| – – | – – | – – | – u u | – u u | – – |

tuque harum interpres curarum et conscia Iuno,

| – – | – – | – – | – – | – u u | – – |

Perhaps the statement should be modified or omitted therefore. Kanjuzi (talk) 20:40, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WRONG[edit]

NOT too hard to make "quantitative"

Heartless soulless brainless shameless needless all elders

With those firearms* from hell (madnesses under utter lies).

What then now? when then that next death by gunner-elders?

Oh what an evil! utter dystopia of all-gunner earth-world.

Youths many ladies as well: who then victim anew now?

Guiltless dead now, underground by hand number of wrong.

Mighty police**? number all with a gun-thing a swift unaliveness.

Where then law? where law? here not not much thereof indeed,

Hatred alone many imperialist steady shameless utter lies.

That's very good! Although surely underground can't be scanned – – – or utter lies u – –, unless perhaps you have a very strong Irish accent? Kanjuzi (talk) 10:27, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"dactylic" is a misnomer[edit]

If you look at the teachings by the ancients on the heroics/hexameters, you'll find that the dactyl was not at the heart of it. Why? Because long syllables add solemnity, not short syllables. The short syllables simply added variation, levity, flexibility. The hexameters were meant to be solemn, such that the more spondees, the better/more serious.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.57.144.205 (talk • contribs) 19:36, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By that measure vergil is a better poet than Homer. 2600:8806:340B:E100:A0EA:A3B4:8CB3:563A 03:19, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Change the divisions between feet to a '/' ?[edit]

Specifically on the Latin section, the divisions between the feet look awfully like an 'l'. Perhaps using a '/' or breaks of some sort would make it less confusing, especially to those learning about this topic for the first time. PeelitePowellite (talk) 21:38, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Text formatting?[edit]

I've spent some time reading this page on my Android phone with no problems whatever, but after switching to my laptop, which is running Ubuntu 18, I've found that although the long syllable sign and anceps signs are perfectly legible, I can no longer see the short syllable sign (as you all know, the bottom half of a circle). I have this problem both in Brave, my browser of choice, and in Firefox.

I only point this out, because on other articles where potential formatting problems are present, information is provided in a box at the top indicating which upgrades the user needs. I'm too backward with tech to be able to do this for myself, so I leave the matter in your capable hands.

Daedalus 96 (talk) 13:56, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Daedalus 96: That's very interesting. Are you talking about the short syllable sign in the general pattern (–⏕ | –⏕ | –⏕ | –⏕ | –⏑⏑ | –X), or as it appears on top of letters such as ǎ? Kanjuzi (talk) 06:46, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Character of Hexameters[edit]

I think the article gives too narrow a view of hexameters, in Latin at any rate. What it says about their epic character is quite true, but they were also used for didactic, pastoral and satirical poetry, and for lighter, conversational poems like Horace's Epistles. They were a sort of poetic maid-of-all-work. If people agree perhaps the article could be filled out to cover this. Someone may know more about the Greek position than I do, but at least I know Hesiod and the pastorals used them. Seadowns (talk) 14:10, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Heavily Spondaic Line"[edit]

Hi team, the article currently has this section regarding the change over time from a spondee preference to a dactylic preference for the first four feet:

However, it is from Virgil that the following famous, heavily spondaic line comes:

However, this line is heavily dactylic, not heavily spondaic. The scansion would be DDDS[DS], wouldn't it? Is this a 'brain fart' on the part of the author, or am I missing something about the gradual shift from spondee preference to dactyl preference for the first four feet? This line is meant to contrast with the lines:

which are indeed heavily spondaic: SSDSDS and SSSSDS, respectively.

All this is to say, should the line

However, it is from Virgil that the following famous, heavily spondaic line comes:

instead say:

However, it is from Virgil that the following famous, heavily datylic line comes:

(and, this being the case, is it really the most dactylic line in the Aeneid? Surely there's gotta be a DDDDDS line somewhere in the heavy action of the later books?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mccartneyac (talk • contribs) 13:56, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is heavily spondiac. I origninally added this because the text said "too many spondees were inadmissible by the time of Vergil", whereas the line really is famous (more so than Ennius to us moderns) and contains no less spondees than "hīs ver|bīs: "ō| gnāta, ti|bī sunt| ante fe|rendae". So, the intention is: "Many spondees might indeed have become less popular, but there are exceptions, and the most famous line with many spondees actually is from Vergil".

"Am I missing something?" Yes, the elision of hiatuses. - The problem is that there is a tradition not to represent the elision of hiatuses in writing (though I think I remember I originally did that), and then people might overlook that these things are there.

When one reads the thing, one reads

(I leave the natural lengths out because the lengths would, in any case, be positional), so it should be quite clear that the line is heavily spondiac.--138.245.1.1 (talk) 12:58, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

MOS DASH etc.[edit]

@Deor:. (a) Concerning MOS:DASH, the recommendation there is to use spaces round an N-dash, and no spaces round an M-dash. These, as far as I can see, are only N-dashes, which is why I added spaces.

(b) It seems to me that the correct place to put the foot separation with instances like quati/t ungula is before the t, since the t is taken metrically as part of the following syllable.

(c) I can see no objection to mentioning in the lead that a hexameter usually has a caesura in the 3rd foot. It does seem an important and typical feature of most hexameters, so it should be included as basic information. The variations, such as 4th-foot caesura or 5th-foot spondee, can be mentioned in the main text. Kanjuzi (talk) 18:17, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(a) No, they're em dashes. The article has unspaced em dashes rather than spaced en dashes everywhere throughout.

(b) How is the t "taken metrically as part of the following syllable"? The syllable would be "short" whether it were "tit" or "ti", and adding t to the next syllable doesn't change its quantity. The divisions should follow the natural syllabication of the words.

(c) The problem was that "either after the first, or after the second syllable of the 3rd foot" is awkward syntactically. You didn't like my initial rewording of the sentence, so I tried just removing the sentence as superfluous. "Usually there is a break, called a caesura, after either the first or the second syllable of the third foot" would be syntactically OK, but it obscures the fact that caesurae can be in other positions. Deor (talk) 18:58, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Deor: (a) Concerning the M-dash, I see that I was mistaken. On the edit page, the N dash and M dash are identical, but once it's published the M-dash looks longer.

(b) No, that's not correct. For the fact is that the last syllable of any word, spoken in isolation or at the end of a verse or sentence, is long. It only becomes short when another word immediately follows. That is why a word like condidit or dicere can very well stand at the end of an iambic line (u – u –); but it cannot come at the end of a hexameter, since if it did it would automatically turn into a cretic (– u –).

(c) Since Virgil has a masculine caesura in more than 85% of his lines I think it would be fair to say that there is usually a word-break in the middle of the third foot. Lines which have no 3rd foot caesura at all, such as haec secum: ‘mene incepto desistere victam are very rare. It does seem to be an important part of the general description, qualified by the word "usually". It doesn't make any difference that it is discussed in greater detail in the body of the article, since you have to remember that a lot of users just look at the lead and don't read any further; so all the basic information has to be there. Kanjuzi (talk) 06:42, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Re (b): I don't see the relevance of your analysis. Clearly quatit isn't "at the end of a verse or sentence", since it's immediately followed by ungula in that line. Only a syllable can be long or short in scansion, and the second syllable in quatit is "tit", not "ti". I don't seem to have at hand an example of reliable source containing a scanned line to illustrate this, but there are several in Prosody (Latin) (see, for example, the scansion of the last two feet of Aeneid 1.3 here). Re (c): You can restore the caesura sentence in the lead if you want, but I think it would be advisable to use the revision I suggested above to avoid faulty parallelism in the sentence. Deor (talk) 20:28, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Deor: I agree with you that quatit has two short syllables when it is followed by ungula; but that's only because the final consonant in pronunciation becomes part of the following syllable. So quatit ungula would be syllabified qua-ti-tun-gu-la. Since it's syllabified that way, I think you should consider the 5th foot to be /tungula/. It's like when you say las arbres (the trees) in French: it's pronounced lézarbr and you would syllabify it and pronounce it as lé-zarbr not léz-arbr. Kanjuzi (talk) 10:15, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're talking past each other to some extent here, and I'm getting weary of the whole matter. You can syllabicate the Latin in whatever way seems best to you, and I won't revert. I'll probably just remove the article from my watchlist. Deor (talk) 13:43, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Spondaic lines[edit]

I draw attention to the sentence "The following lines of Ennius would not have been felt admissible by later authors since they both contain repeated spondees at the beginning of consecutive lines...". Where does this idea come from? It is certainly incorrect. In Aeneid 1, for example, we find lines beginning with two spondees at 15, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 40, 44...., so it is neither rare nor forbidden for it to occur in consecutive lines. It would really be better if this article were based on standard published works on Greek and Latin metre, none of which seems to have been quoted as yet. Kanjuzi (talk) 08:36, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Learning from rules?[edit]

In the current version of the article: "The hexameter came into Latin as an adaptation from Greek long after the practice of singing the epics had faded. Consequentially, the properties of the meter were learned as specific "rules" rather than as a natural result of musical expression." There is surely no evidence for this. Mentions of the hexameter in metrical writers are not very detailed and don't discuss specific rules at all. Also it seems unlikely. Most people, when composing poetry in their own language, simply write what comes naturally in imitation of patterns they have heard before; they don't consult a rule-book or need lessons. So I think this idea also needs to go. Kanjuzi (talk) 10:57, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Syllables[edit]

As you can see, I have added a paragraph on how to tell short from long syllables. I hope this will not seem unnecessary to anyone. First of all, the article on Scansion is purely about English scansion so not helpful here. Secondly, this metre is the probably the first or even the only metre students of Latin will study, and knowing syllable lengths is a necessary preliminary.

Another thought concerning this article is this. Many readers will be interested only in Latin, since the number who study Ancient Greek as well is very limited. So they are likely to skip over any paragraphs discussing Greek. For that reason, it might be better to do the introductory paragraph on how to scan a line into feet using a Latin example, rather than a Greek one, and then after that to add a paragraph on Greek hexameter poetry which wouldn't be essential reading for an understanding of the subject. Kanjuzi (talk) 16:52, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Italian hexameter[edit]

It is totally absent a complete discussion about italian hexameter, both in original poetry and in traslation of classical poetry, as an exhaustive treatment of usage of hexameter in spanish, catalan and portuguese literature. 94.185.74.172 (talk) 10:05, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]