Latin Elegiac Couplet

[Gabrielwelter]

Hac tanta O ego nunc volo me culpa exonerare
Quae in miseri somno tabet caletque fremens.


Ok, this is my first; I did it this morning after having this idea. Its quite simple ,I think, but It is mine so it kinda gave me a good sensation after having completed it.
BUT, I don't know if everything is correct, so if anyone discover some error, I would be glad to know!

[Kasper]

Hi Gabriel,

not a bad effort at all! Certainly the grammar seems pretty good to me.

Sorry if the following seems like a lot of criticism, it is certainly not meant that way. There are a few errors in this though, mainly concerned with prosody.

In elegy elision is very rare. Certainly something like tanta-o-ego really does not occur. The same for culpa-exonerare. Keep in mind that poetry in Latin is somewhat slurred.

You seem to be making the same mistakes I made when I first tried my hand writing Latin poetry (or at least in meter). Have a good look at the length of all vowels, such as final ‘o’. Your dictionary will indicate the length of vowels and otherwise use perseus.

Don’t forget that two consecutive consonants make the syllable long, with the exception of some liquids - like you did with fremens.
The grant Whiteoctave wrote a piece on composition which I think is still available on the website of the even grander Annis. Auribus cum mulinis Episcopus is in the process of writing a composition of at least a hundred lines for the Vatican contest and will undoubtedly have some further advice.

[Episcopus]

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=596415975&searchurl=y%3D0%26tn%3Dfirst%2Blatin%2Bverse%2Bbook%26x%3D0

If you're serious about versifying this book will give you as good a start as can be expected, with some work.

http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/ktl/LatinElegiacs.pdf

And there's whiteoctave's advice on this. I have no authority to give you any advice on verse composition. Yet.

Keep at it!

~E

[Gabrielwelter]

Thanks for the advice Episcopus and Kasper!
It's very important for self-students to have this kind of feedback. Criticism is very welcome specially when you don't have anyone at hand to point out your mistakes.

You seem to be making the same mistakes I made when I first tried my hand writing Latin poetry (or at least in meter).

That's at least relieving...

If you're serious about versifying this book will give you as good a start as can be expected, with some work.

wow...that seems a really exciting book. One more to my looong wish list.And it is not expensive!

[Gabrielwelter]

Thanks for the advice Episcopus and Kasper!
It's very important for self-students to have this kind of feedback. Criticism is very welcome specially when you don't have anyone at hand to point out your mistakes.

You seem to be making the same mistakes I made when I first tried my hand writing Latin poetry (or at least in meter).

That's at least relieving...

If you're serious about versifying this book will give you as good a start as can be expected, with some work.

wow...that seems a really exciting book. One more to my looong wish list.And it is not expensive!

Episcopus is in the process of writing a composition of at least a hundred lines for the Vatican contest

That's bold! did he already choose a subject?

[Kasper]

That's bold! did he already choose a subject?

Credo illum ab initio gloriam matris adlegisse. Infeliciter, maximus limes duocentorum modorum quoque est. Quidnam erit, Episcope?

Ah! redeundum Cwebis scilicet!!

[Episcopus]

This is not the target poem, but as an exercise I plan to translate 'The Ugly Duckling' into Latin verse, from the original Danish of course.

~E