LPC: Lesson - Scansion Review

Scansion Review

Scansion means to take a line of Latin and determine its meter. To do this, we must determine the length of each syllable, which we then divide into groups called feet. The process may seem complicated at first, but practice it enough and it does get easier! A mistake will be fairly obvious when working with Latin poetry, because you will find a line not working out because of left over syllables. Check for elision - that's often the cause of a mistake in scansion!

Meters

Dactylic Hexameter

Six feet per line. The last two lines of each line are a dactyl and a spondee. Also called epic meter.

Example line:

Arma vi | rumque ca | nō, Trō | iae quī | prīmus ab | ōrīs

Elegiac Couplet

Paired lines. First line will be dactylic hexameter. The second line is in pentameter (five feet), with the line divided in two parts (2.5 feet per line, with each half ending in a single long syllable). Example:

Ōdi~et a | mō. Quā | re~id faci | am, for | tasse re | quīris?
Nescio, | sed fie | rī || sentio~et | exruci | or.

Hendecasyllabic

Each line contains exactly eleven (hendeca) syllables, in five feet.

Example Line:

cui dō | nō lepi | dum no | vum li | bellum

Meter in Catullus

This brief review should prepare you to perform scansion on certain lines of Catullus' poetry. The poetry will have naturally long vowels marked (like the examples above). Catullus typically used either hendecasyllabic meter or elegiac couplets. There are two poems from his surviving corpus that use the epic meter (dactylic hexameter), while several others use the Greek meters that Catullus was borrowing.