OTP: Lesson - The Scansion of Poetry - Quantity

The Scansion of Poetry - Quantity

The final piece of the scansion puzzle is quantity. You now have your syllables divided out and have noted any elision. To determine the actual meter of the line, we now have to figure out whether each syllable is long or short. Recall that the feet (dactyl, spondee, etc.) are determined by the lengths of syllables used: so one long syllable followed by two short syllables is a dactyl. In this course, so far, we have never used long marks (called a macron - a long a looks like this: ā), but now that we are going to be working with quantity, long marks will be included any time you are asked to scan a line of Latin poetry.

The main rule: if a vowel is long, the syllable is long. If a vowel is short, the syllable is short. So, the length of the syllable is based on the length of the vowel in that syllable. Again, let's look at the first line of Vergil's Aeneid for some examples:

  • Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs
Rules for Syllable Length
Rule Explanation Example

Long by Nature:

If a vowel is marked long, the syllable is long.

Naturally long vowels are marked with a macron:

ā, ē, ī, ō, ū

The following syllables contain a long vowel, so would be marked long:

-nō, Trō-, quī, prī, ōr, īs

Long by Nature:

If a syllable contains a diphthong, it is long.

 Common diphthongs are: ae (ai), au, ei, eu, oe (oi), ui

The following syllable contains a diphthong, so would be marked long:

Trōiae

Long by Position:

If the syllable contains a vowel, followed by two or more consonants, it is long

 The vowel can be naturally long or short, but being followed by two or more consonants makes the syllable long. The two consonants can be part of different words: vir naturus - the r and n would make "vir" a long syllable.

The following syllables have a vowel followed by two consonants, so would be marked long:

Ar-, -rum-

Long by Position:

If the syllable contains a vowel, followed by x or z, it is long 

 Any vowel followed by x or z will be considered long because these two consonants count as a double consonants

There are no examples in the line above. Instead consider the following:

flexibus -> the e is long: fle-xi-bus = long, short, short

Note on Special Consonants:

Qu and Gu count as a single consonant

 If a naturally short vowel is followed by qu or gu, the syllable will be scanned as short

There are no examples in the line above. Instead, consider the following:

aqua -> the first a is short: a-qua = short, short

Note on Consonant Pairs:

Beware: common consonant pairs (ch, ph, th, br, bl, cr, cl, dr, gr, gl, kr, kl, pl, tr) will not consistently create a long syllable. 

 It will depend on what the meter requires. In general, assume the syllable is short when a vowel is followed by one of these combinations.

There are no examples in the line above where the vowel before is not already marked long. Instead, consider the following:

Scanned long: omnium patrōnus - the syllable "pa" is long to fit the meter here.

Scanned short: prō patriā - the syllable "pa" is short to fit the meter

Note on Elision:

The quantity of the syllable is determined by the length of the second vowel when eliding.

 The first vowel "slurs" into the second, and all the weight of the syllable rests on the second vowel, including creating either a long or short syllable.

There are no examples of elision in the line above. Instead, consider the following:

maximum est -> maxim~est

Because the "e" of "est" is followed by two consonants, it will be scanned as a long syllable:

ma-xi-mest = long, short, long

We now have all the tools we need to scan a line of Latin, so let's do so with our example line.