by Kasper » Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:17 pm
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.
“Cum ego verbo utar,” Humpty Dumpty dixit voce contempta, “indicat illud quod optem – nec plus nec minus.”
“Est tamen rogatio” dixit Alice, “an efficere verba tot res indicare possis.”
“Rogatio est, “Humpty Dumpty responsit, “quae fiat magister – id cunctum est.”