Poetic Meter: Special Scansion Rules and Exceptions

A series of lines of handwritten Latin text in black ink on a white background There are a few special rules for scansion that are worth reviewing, as these special circumstances can help you solve a difficult scan. Please do take notes on these rules, but also understand that this information is quite in depth. It will take lots of practice to get comfortable with a lot of these exceptions, so keep practicing scanning the poetry we are reading!

Image note: the Latin text in the image is from the 11th century CE and contains the first few lines of an epic poem about El Cid Campeador, entitled Carmen Campi Doctoris. El Cid is a Spanish folk hero, much like Aeneas or Odysseus, so this poem serves a similar purpose as the Aeneid or Odyssey. However, the anonymous author of this epic poem chose a different meter (they did not use dactylic hexameter). Notice that some macrons (long marks) are included to help readers with the meter.

Elision

Elision occurs when a word ends in a vowel and the next word starts with a vowel. For example:

magna est

When eliding, the ending vowel sound is skipped for the second sound, so we write: magn~est (pronounced mahg-nest). So, instead of three syllables (mag-na-est) you have just two (magn-est).

Beyond this basic situation, there are two special rules for elision that you need to keep in mind when scanning poetry in Latin:

Final m, followed by a vowel. The final -m was considered a weak sound, and so would be elided when followed by a vowel. For example:
- magnam est = magn~est
- Note: when listening to a poem, this would sound the same as our regular elision above - the listener would have to pay attention to the rest of the line to understand the correct usage of the elided word (accusative here)
A vowel followed by a word with an initial h. An initial h- would lead to elision because it is aspirated (it doesn't really have a sound, so is ignored in metrical contexts). For example:
- magna hora = magn~(h)ora
- Pronounced mahg-n(h)or-ah - English speakers tend to not use aspirated consonants (making a breathy n is not something we do regularly), so it's easiest just to ignore the h entirely when pronouncing this elision.

Irregular Short and Long Vowels

As a rule, the final -o of a 1st person singular verb in the present tense, active voice is long:

vocō

However, in classical Latin, this was not considered to be mandatory. Poets especially would treat the final -o as short if it was needed to fit their meter. Several of our poems include these 1st person endings and have them marked appropriately (if you see that final -o without a macron, it was left short intentionally).

Additionally, the dative for 1st and 2nd person pronouns (mihi and tibi) has an optional long ī in the second syllable. It is almost always short, but occasionally, the poet will need to long vowel and so will treat the final -i as long.

One last note: there are two ways to think about the final syllable of a line, whether in dactylic hexameter, elegiac couplets, or hendecasyllabic (we'll learn more about this meter when we read Martial).

Option 1: always consider it long - no matter what it "looks like". Dactylic hexameter "requires" a final spondee, so the last two syllables should always be long-long. The special pentameter of the second line of an elegiac couplet must end in a long syllable. Hendecasyllabic ends with a special foot called a bacchius (short, long, long). Because these meters require a final long syllable, just treat it as long, regardless of any long marks or information based on position.
Option 2: it doesn't actually matter! While we call it a spondee or bacchius or long syllable, in truth, that final syllable could just as easily be marked with a third option: x, which stands for anceps, meaning the syllable could be either short or long.

Nevertheless, most poets tried to be faithful to their meter and make that last syllable long. Pay attention in particular to syllables at the end of a line that end in a consonant, then the next line starts with a consonant. This counts as making the syllable long by position, since the vowel is followed by two or more consonants!

Syllable Length By Position

A vowel (and thus syllable) is considered long by position when that vowel is followed by two consonants (including the letter x, which is considered a double consonant: ks).

However, certain consonant blends and digraphs do not automatically lead to the previous syllable being long. When you have a plosive (p, t, k, b, d, or g) followed by a liquid (r, l), they create a consonant blend - you can still hear both consonants, but they make a single sound.

Examples: cr, br, gr, cl, bl, tr

When you add an aspirated consonant (h) to a plosive, you get a digraph: instead of each consonant making a sound, the two combined make a new or unique sound, or (as is the case in Latin), the plosive sound is accompanied only by breath (aspiration), while retaining its typical sound. So:

th in English = a sound like the
- Note that gh in English has, generally, the same sound as hard g: ghost = gohst (you would never say johst)
th in Latin = a sound like t+breath: theatrum = tay-aht-rum

When dealing with these combinations, use the context of the rest of the line to determine length. The poet can choose to make the previous syllable long or treat it as short, depending on what they need to make the meter work.

Practice Activity: Special Rules on Scansion

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