"Ferret opem certē, || sĩ nōn ope māter egēret, 4 6 Nāta simul, moritūra simul, simul īte sub undās 3 5 Dēsierat, || dēposuitque sinū. 2 2 3 6 25 Vāgierunt ambō pariter. Sensisse putārēs. 6 Arbor erat. || Remanent vestigia, | quaeque vocātur Vēnit ad expositōs (mīrum!) | lupa fēta gemellōs. 35 Nōn nocuisse parum est; prōdest quoque. Quōs lupa 2 3 5 1 nutrit, II. SCANSION Ancient versification was a matter of quantity. To be able to read Latin poetry with pleasure one must pronounce correctly, and to pronounce correctly one must know and carefully observe the quantities of the syllables. Any one who can pronounce Latin fairly well and can read with intelligence Longfellow's Evangeline will have little trouble in mastering Ovid's verse. The poems of Ovid are written in dactylic meters. The hexameter (i.e. a verse of six measures or feet), the meter of Homer and Vergil, is used in the Metamorphoses and Halieutica; in his other works the hexameter alternates with the so-called pentameter (i.e. a verse of five measures or feet), forming the Elegiac Distich. The basis of all dactylic meters is the dactyl, composed of one long and two short syllables (expressed -~~). Now, by quantity we mean the time it takes to pronounce a syllable. The unit of measurement is the short syllable (marked ); the long syllable (marked) takes just twice as long in pronunciation as the short. Since, therefore, the long syllable is twice as long as the short, it is obvious that two short syllables equal one long; and hence we may expect to find a spondee, composed of two long syllables (expressed --), used instead of the dactyl. So instead of a foot of three syllables, one long and two short, we often have a foot of two long syllables. The fifth foot of the hexameter is commonly a dactyl; when a spondee is found in this foot, the verse is called a spondaic verse. The sixth foot is always considered a spondee. But the slight pause at the end of the verse makes it possible for a short syllable to stand here. The final syllable is therefore called syllaba anceps (doubtful syllable). The syllables of a metrical foot may belong to one or more words. The constitution of the hexameter may, then, be represented thus: -51-31-21-AI-JI-Y Scansion is the division of a verse into its metrical feet; hence to scan a verse, we must know the quantity of the syllables composing each word. The rules of quantity can be found in any Latin grammar. Some technical terms of prosody will be treated here. The long hexameter must have some place where the reader may pause to catch his breath. There are two kinds of pauses, the Caesura and the Diaeresis. A Caesura occurs when a word ends within a foot: sponte sua sine, lēge, fi, dem, rēc,tumque, colebat. The caesural pauses are here marked by double lines. The feet are separated by single lines: sponte su is a foot, because the three syllables fill out the requirements of the dactyl; again, dem rēc is a foot, because its two syllables fill out the requirements of a spondee. It will be seen that a caesura may fall after a long syllable (- or --), or after the first short syllable of the dactyl (—~||~). When a caesura falls after the long syllable, it is called Strong or Masculine Caesura; when |