Vivamus, Textkitores, atque carminemus!

[Viviparidus]

Helpful links by Textkit member William Annis to start with:
On Greek meter in general (much of it could apply to Latin too):
http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/meter/intro.pdf

On Latin elegiacs:
http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/ktl/LatinElegiacs.pdf

----------------------------------------------------

As you'll soon find out, I'm no poet. Usually in my life I'm not at all inclined to write anything poetical. But for some reason I find writing, or trying to write in the classical Latin style interesting, more like a puzzle, than artistic expression to me.

Here's my attempt in dactylicus hexameter, though I don't even know only two lines could make a hexametric poem. But it sure was a challenge and fun.

I barely started learning scansion and not sure about metric rules such as elysion. Any correction and/or suggestion would be deeply appreciated.

At of course, everybody is welcome to post your creation here.

Hic est locus omnibus ad poema ponendum.
Ipse hexametrum facere conabar.

[Argumentum]
Laetus eram cum papilionem, cui nomen Iaponicum Asagimadara, scientificum Parantica Sita, hoc loco rariorem carduum meum nectar eius quaerentem advenire viderem. Solicitus quoque, autem, vespa feroci circumvolante.

[Hexameter]
Papilio qui trans mare longe iter facit horto
carduum it ad cenam. Pulcher hospes, cave vespam.

[Scansion]
Pa_pi-li-/o_ qui_/ trans ma-re || / lon-ge_ (i)-/ter fa-cit/ hor-to_
_vv / _ _ / _vv || / _ _ / _ vv / _ _

car-du-(um) it / ad ce_/nam. || Pul/cher hos-/pes, ca-ve /ves-pam.
_vv / _ _ / _ || _ / _ _ / _vv / _ _

[Explanation and Excuse]
The butterfly sure was beautiful. I really wanted to have "advenit" or at least "adit," not "it" as seen above, to make the meaning clear. I tried hard, but eventually gave up to "it" (eo) for "metri causa."

[mwh]

Bravo! You’ve managed to incorporate all the elements of the incident. And I love the apostrophe of the butterfly, and the concluding cave vespam.

One or two metrical points.

longe iter. Elision (Elysium we have yet to reach!): by artificial metrical convention it's the first of the two colliding vowels that's elided. So longe iter would become long(e) iter, with i(ter) short, which would wreck your scansion. But such an elision of the long -e would be very harsh in any case.

trans mare. Caesura in this line would separate trans from mare, for the usual 3rd-foot caesura. That would be ungainly.

pulcher hospes. “h” has no metrical effect. Aspirates behave as if they were not there. (Catullus 84!) So (pulch)er would be short before hospes.

Keeping your vocabulary, you could try something like:
Papilio qui fecit iter iam trans mar(e) ad hortum
cardu(um) adit cenar(e). hospes pulcher, cave vespam.
Far from elegant, in fact very ugly, but it does show a way around your unmetricalities.
—Or retaining your carduum it ad cenam (nothing much wrong with “it”) you could continue e.g. bell(e) advena, o, cave vespam. (o in hiatus ok.) I rather like that.

For two-liners you might try an elegiac couplet. It’s a neat meter. Whatever meter you try, it’s a good idea to soak yourself in e.g. Ovid or Vergil first.

Incidentally, poema is a Greek neuter, so you want ad poema ponendum.

Enjoy!

[Viviparidus]

mwh, thank you so much for your help, suggestion, and also an good example, even! If it were not for you, it would have taken me forever to notice the most embarrassing and obvious(now to me) errors, I'm very sure.

Your examples, very nice and clean, help me turn to the right direction. I really love the second one, of your own words, "belle advena, o!, cave vespam." I wish I'd some day come up with something like this, natural and dramatic, myself, but for that for now, I will keep trying. I understand I'd better go back to Ovid, who in the first place showed me what hexameter was like.

Since I found I could go on no longer than two lines, I will tackle with the elegiac couplet, following your suggestion.

Oh, and as for "poema!" It's neutral! I believe more than a few times I used it as "poema, ae, f." Ouch! I really should be a good boy and look up every word that's new to me without assuming all the word ending with -a feminine.

I fixed it in my first post so as not to let the error in the head stop our poets from posting their works here.

Many thanks again!

[Viviparidus]

Elegiac couplet above all reminds me of epigrams of Martial, although I of course admire letters by Ovid, too. So I picked a satirical theme for my first attempt. Any suggestion would vehementer appreciated.

[Argumentum]
Soror mea quae mihi crassa non umquam videtur semper enixe macrescere contendit. Semper cibum novum emit sed eum ipsa non edit ad finem nam talis cibus sine oleo solet insulsus esse. Et ego eum esse soleo, solum quia quemquam cibum edulem abicere nolo.
(I wonder if "solum quia" works as "just because.")

[Elegiac couplet]
Semper se gracilem debere credit mea consors.
Esca sine unguine quam aucupat autem in ventere meo.

[Scansion]
Sem-per / se_ gra-ci-/lem || de_/be_re cre-/dit me-a/con-sors
_ _ / _vv / _ || _ / _vv / _ vv / _ _

Es-ca si-/n(e) un-gui-ne/quam(hiatus) || au-cu-pat /au-t(em) in/ven-tre me/o_
_ vv / _ vv / _ || _vv / _ _ / _ vv / _

[Explanation and excuse]
Sister/lover/wife ever on diet, maybe it's a common mystery. I hope the second line would do without "est." I tried to squeeze it in, so that it reads "the food IS in my tummy" but eventually gave up(again).

For the first time in this life I used hiatus between caesura. I'd like to thank you again, mwh, for showing me how to use it. I was not sure about it before and when I have two vowels between caesura, I just avoided it. Hiatus, if I'm using this right, sure will make my metric life easier. At least less difficult.

[mwh]

Nice try, and you set up the couplet very neatly in the hexameter—if only credo had short e, which unfortunately it doesn’t. E.g. putat would mend it. There’s nothing like writing verse to impress vowel quantities upon you!

You haven’t quite got the “pentameter” (to give it its conventional but very misleading name). The meter is –vv-vv- repeated, with a strict break inbetween. In the first half you can have spondees for dactyls, just as in the hexameter, but the second half has to be kept purely dactylic, no spondees allowed.
But your line gets off to a decent start before it falls apart.

I must have somehow misled you about hiatus. It’s best avoided altogether. (My “o” between belle advena and cave vespam was a special case.) In some meters and in some poets you occasionally find it (more in Greek than in Latin), whether by ineptitude or for special effect (cf. my "o", one or the other), but no self-respecting poet would have hiatus after quam, and not at mid-line. The two halves of the “pentameter” must be kept quite discrete (even elision is avoided at this point), but not by hiatus. So I’m afraid I haven't made your life easier after all. (But hey, poets like to make things difficult for themselves: witness the second half of the pentameter.)

[Viviparidus]

mwh, thank you again so much for your kind and enlightening post!

Credebam "credere" vocalem brevem habere, sed oiei, non sic!

You're right, "cre_dere" now deeply printed upon my brain and never again will I make the same mistake.

Oh, and spondee is not allowed in the second line. Boy, that's tough. And the odd looking second line actually consists of two repeated _vv_vv_ ! Wow, that's eye-opening.
[edited to add the correction below]
After posting this post I re-read your post and found you said spondee's not allowed in the second half of the pentameter, not in the entire line. Whew, that's some relief.

Concerning hiatus, I'm sorry I had jumped to the easy and rosy conclusion and made you explain further. But thanks to you, now I can see second caesura was really bad. Having the pause there was no good at all in the first place, with or without hiatus I understand. And hiatus itself is not encouraged at all. OK, I see I have a hard way to go, but as you say, that's poet's life! No one would respect them if it's too easy.

Now that you kindly fixed my first line with "putat," I'll work with the pentameter to see if I could salvage it.

Thanks again!

[mwh]

And if ever you're inclined to try the iambic tetrameter (catalectic), here's a very fine model:
https://books.google.com/books?id=oSLVA ... 22&f=false

PS Not so very fine after all, now that I read beyond the first line. There's metrical error in the second line, and more to follow.

[Viviparidus]

I tried to fix my pentameter, but I had to admit it's beyond salvation. I gave up fat-free food and instead came up with a new line. I hope this works OK this time.

[What I try to mean]
"She prohibits herself from sweets. To me too, unreasonably."

She refuses to eat sweets, that's OK, but she's mad at me when I am to have mine. Isn't it violence?

Semper se gracilem debere putat mea consors.
Se dulci prohibet. Me quoque, non merito.

Sem-per / se_ gra-ci-/lem de_/be_re pu-/tat me-a/con-sors
_ _ / _vv / _ _ / _vv / _ vv / _ _

Se_ dul-/ci_ pro-hi-/bet. || Me_ quo-que, / no_n me-ri-/to_.
_ _ / _ vv / _ || _ vv / _ vv / _

[Viviparidus]

mwh, thank you for the URL for the iambic tetrameter. And thank you for taking your time to help me out. I'm hesitant to bother you with my old problem, but this is my chance to ask you about my dilemma with iambus.

Since I couldn't find where caesura should sit in the tetrameter, let me make up a line in trimeter instead for example so that you'd see where I went wrong.

Tu ticis autem te bene tuba canere sic
Tu_ di_cis au-/tem || te_ be-ne tu/ba_ ca-ne-re sic

_ _ v _ / _ || _ v vv / _ vv v _

Do they look like three iambic meters to you? I'm not sure, because whenever I scan iambic anything, it doesn't seem meters work this way. Today when I tried the verses in the book you recommended, the same thing happened to me.

Here's how it goes:

I scanned first two lines and here's the result.

[line 1]
Seduxit Miles virginem, receptus in hybernis,
Se_du_xit Mi_les virginem, receptus in hyberni_s,
_ _ _ _ _ _v_ , v_v v v_ _

(Can't find "hyberna" in my small dictionary. Only "hi_berna." Since the most words starting with "hy-" seem to have them as short syllables, I scan it as short as well, assuming the poet replaced common "hiberna" with less common "hyberna" to get the short syllable to complete the meter. In any case, it doesn't seem to make much difference for me.)

[line2]
Quae laqueo praecipitem se contulit Avernis.
Quae la-que-o_ prae-ci-pi-tem se_ con-tu-lit A-ver-ni_s.
_ vv_ _vv_ _ _vv v_ _

I thought anything iambic consists of iambus, X_v_, with the long vowels always replaceable with two short ones, like X vv v vv, X _v vv, etc. So the absolute must here is the third short vowel, or so I thought. But it doesn't seem to work. I had the same problem when I tried to scan Plautus and Terence. So I know I'm definitely wrong with iambus somewhere, but don't know where and how. Back then, I thought I was not ready yet for it and gave it up.

[mwh]

OK, iambics. Here’s what you need to know. Most if not all of it you evidently know already, but to run through it:

The Greek iambic trimeter is basically
x-v-x/-v-x-v-
where x means the syllable is free to be either short or long (it’s called “anceps”). There’s only three places in the line where there has to be a short syllable.

The meter is taken over by Roman poets such as Seneca in his tragedies. These will provide you with good examples.
Catullus even wrote a couple of poems in “pure” iambics, stricter than the Greek form, with alternation of exclusively short (not anceps) and long syllables:
#4 Phasellus ille, quem videtis, hospites, etc.
#27 Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati? etc.
You should be able to read these metrically without difficulty, and I suggest you start by doing just that. (But don’t bother trying to compose iambics like these yourself: you’ll fail. Catullus is showing off his virtuosity.)

The regular trimeter (both Greek and Latin) allows occasional substitutions: some of the longs can be “resolved” into two shorts, as can some of the anceps syllables too. We won’t go into that unless you want to.

The meters of early Roman comedy—Plautus and Terence—are quite a different kettle of fish. It’s these that'll make you cry.
Most important, nearly all the “short” positions can be either long or short (if you follow me). So instead of an iambic trimeter (each metron being x-v-) you get the iambic senarius (6-footer). The basic form (I stress basic) is
x-x-x/-x-x-v-.
The caesura gives the line a bit of shape, and the penult has to be kept short. (You lose your "3rd-syllable-short" rule.)
The line admits of many kinds of variation, and there are all sorts of weird and wacky phonological phenomena to complicate the scansion of the verses. (They're not really weird at all, of course, just reflexes of how the Latin language behaved in real life. Despite being metrical, they're our best guide to how Latin was really spoken.)

But let’s forget about them, and go straight on to the iambic “septenarius” (so-called). This is what our Latin translation of “Miss Bailey” uses, in relatively straightforward form.
It’s basically
x-x-x-v-/x-x-v- -
(You’ll notice it doesn’t actually have 7 feet, as the name implies, but more like 7 and a half. It’s really a catalectic octonarius.)
Note (1) the midline break (contrasting with the senarius' mid-foot caesura) and (2) the obligatory short in the closing cadence of each of its two parts. These help give the line definition.

So now you can have another go at Miss Bailey.

Seduxit Miles virginem, receptus in hybernis
SeDUXit MIes VIRginEM,
reCEPtus IN hyBERnis
I’ve put the longs in caps. You’ll notice most of them coincide with where the word accents naturally fall. (I’ve put those in bold.) So just read the line as if it were prose, and you should find it practically scans itself!
(Hybernis will be alternative spelling of hibernis. From a Londoner’s perspective I guess Halifax, in Yorkshire, is the frozen North.) He treats the h- as if it were a consonant, contrary to ordinary Latin practice.

Quae laqueo praecipitem / se contulit Avernis.
laqu- is long.
praecipitem you scan correctly, with –cip- short. (Catullus 105!) But the Archdeacon who composed this evidently didn’t know that: here the –cip- has to be scanned long. As does the –it of contulit. Little wonder you were thrown off! But if you have the meter fixed in your head and make the words fit it, you should be able to sail right through his metrical errors, merely wincing if you notice them. I should not have thrown these faulty septenarii at you.

So I hope this lessens your difficulties. Just stay away from Plautus and Terence (at least for now), and you’ll be fine.

—Oh, your trimeter. (Trimeter as distinct from senarius, I take it.)
Tu dicis autem te bene tuba canere sic.
I have difficulty reading this as a trimeter. You're playing fast and loose with resolutions. Up to caesura is fine, then things go a bit haywire. bene tu- gives you a split resolution (-be tu- substituting for a long), which throws the whole line out, and to make matters worse you follow that up with a fifth-foot dactyl. The feel of the meter is quite lost, I'm afraid. I think you're working too mechanically. If you must have resolutions, you must keep them clean and clear. Seneca would make a good model. But perhaps you should really get on top of the dactylic meters first.

[Viviparidus]

mwh, thank you so much for taking your time and effort to help me out of my misery! I think I finally get it!!!

I now see I confused myself by mixing up two totally different styles. I understand iambic meter is really rhythmical. Lines by Catullus is really beautiful with clean long-short-long-short. So is Miss Bailey, when you read longs more strongly than anceps. I'll read more good iambics aloud till I learn the feel with my body, as well as with head before writing anything iambic myself.

Plautus, I'll continue reading his works, because I'm dying to know the endings, but for now I'll ignore the meters.

Oh, and I'm really sorry I forced you to look into my horrible trimeter. I was so confused I made it up to see where I went wrong, without worrying much about the meaning of the sentence. So you were quite accurate when you said it's mechanical.

Thanks again for your kind help, mwh. I did try to solve this mystery myself before. I even found a book on "Meters of Plautus," but was not able to figure out what's going on till you kindly explained it all for me. Now I can read Plautus without feeling miserable. Thank you, thank you!

[Viviparidus]

Maybe I should stop writing any verses till I read more Ovid to build the feel of meters. But this one just hit me earlier today and I couldn't help it.

Here's another elegiac couplet that occurred to me as I stay home in this blessed sunny day, nursing my injured leg, looking outside through my window. Something red keeps falling as if red snow, and was I surprised. Turned out to be dead leaves falling from neaby trees.

As I keep making obvious mistakes, I decided to look up all the words in my verses to check them. It seems to be a good idea, as I found THREE embarrassing metric and grammatic errors listing them. :-@

Since the three feet after the caesura is very solemnly restricted, this time I started working there. With these done, the rest is easier, or less difficult, with spondees allowed and without a caesura.

[Elegiac couplet]
Flammari nive per vitrum visa festino
tecto lustratum. Frons cadit hic et illic.

[Scansion]
flam-ma_/ri_ ni-ve/per vit/rum vi_/sa_ fes-/ti_no_
__ _ / _ vv / _ _ / _ _ / _ _ / _ _
_ _ / _ _ / _ || _ vv / _ vv / _
tec-to_/lus-tra_/tum. || Frons ca-dit / hi_c et i-/lli_c

[vocaburary]
flamma_ris is e : flame-like colored, red
nix nivis f : snow
vitrum i n : glass
festi_na_re : to hurry
tectum i n: roof, ceiling, house, habitat, hideout
lus-tra_re: to purify, to inspect, etc. (spinum)
frons frondis f: tree leaf
cadere: to fall
hi_c: here
illi_c: there

[Excuse]
1) I think "vitrum" is not very good here. I wish common "fe-nes-tra" worked, but alas, I couldn't manage it.

2) "hic et illic." I know it's usually used as "hic illic," but well.....

[mwh]

I must be brief today.

No, don’t ignore meter in Plautus. Just read the lines aloud at normal pace without scanning them and eventually the meter will come through. Keep in mind the basic anceps-long (or long-anceps) alternation. Some meters (trochaic) kick off from the longum, others (iambic) from the anceps, but they all share the same pattern of alternation. The longum can be resolved into two shorts (as can anceps sometimes); find the longa, follow the word accents, get into the flow of the rhythm.
Some editions mark the important stresses (the longa or resolutions thereof), to help us along.

Couplet.
Hexameter not good. Much too heavy, no proper caesura, spondaic 5th foot (avoid those!), has no clarity, doesn’t read like a hexam. at all, sorry.
Pentam. reads very well—except that first syll. of illic is long! It's hard to catch everything!

[Viviparidus]

mwh, thank you for checking my messy meters againl. I didn't realize the same rules should apply to the first line of the couplet as an a hexameter; caesura and no spondee in the 5th foot. Was I wrong! I think I at last understand how couplet should be, at least technically.

And, aaaaaaah! il-lic, yes, that should be long by position.

Thanks also for your advice on how to deal with Plautus. I'll do that.

Now I'll go retreat to my room and have more quality time with Ovid. I'd better do something about my vocaburary that is severely limited, too. I often try to run before I can even walk. I hope some day I could show you better verses. Thank you again for your patience and kind help, mwh! I owe you a lot.

[mwh]

Glad to help. And maybe others will join in here.

[Viviparidus]

I hope so, too! What do you think of a template added to my first post, to invite first-time poets among us? Here's what I learned so far thanks to your help. Please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere, and I'll add the fixed template as the guideline of this thread.

[Elegiac couplet] (Ovid except for Metamorphoses, Epigrams by Martial)

1st line: hexameter
_ vv / _ vv / _ || vv / _ vv /[ _ vv ]/ _ x
2nd line: Pentameter
_ vv / _ vv / _ || [ _ vv / _ vv ] / x

[hexameter] (Aeneid, Metamorphoses etc.)
_ vv / _ vv / _ || vv / _ vv /[ _ vv ]/ _ x
_ vv / _ vv / _ || vv / _ vv /[ _ vv ]/ _ x

_vv: dactylus. Can be replaced by spondee _ _ but some exception applies (see below).
||: caesura (a breath pause)
x: can be long or short
[_vv]: cannot be replaced by spondee "_ _."

[Iambics]
x_x_x_v_ || x_x_v_ _

||: caesura
x: can be long or short
v: must be short

[mwh]

(?Ex)Textkit member William Annis put together some material on meter that anyone here will find useful.

On Greek meter in general (much of it could apply to Latin too):
http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/meter/intro.pdf

On Latin elegiacs:
http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/ktl/LatinElegiacs.pdf

And there may be others by him.

[Viviparidus]

mwh, thank you for the very helpful links! I've added them to my first post so that they'd help biginners like me.

I've read them both. His explanation is very comprehensive, clear and easy to follow. Most rules were totally new to me. Was I bold to think of writing a poem in Latin for fun!

I'm now overwhelmed, but grateful as he also added helpful tips for composing verses, such as the allowed use of perfect infinitives instead of current to get needed shorts. The information on Greek verses is helpful and interesting as well, to know how it's born and handed to Romans.

Now let me self-check my recent verses with his pages on my side as the guide.

Sol me deducit turdique suave recantant
atqui secedo crus miserum medicans.
(=I had my leg injured and can't go out in this fine day, boo-hoo)

[hexameter]
Sol me deducit turdique suave recantant
So_l me_/ de_-du_/-cit || tur-/di_-que su-/a_ve re-/can-tant
_ _ / _ _ / _ || _ / _ vv / _ vv / _ _

*The line should end with either a disyllable or a trisyllable. - never knew that, but happens to be OK.
*The first foot should begin with a dactyl. - NG
- Adverbs are relatively rare in elegy and best covered by an adjective in the nominative - NG "suave" above is an adverb.

[pentameter]
atqui secedo crus miserum medicans.
at-qui_/ se_ce_/do_ || cru_s mi-se-/rum me-di-/cans.
_ _ / _ _ / _ || _ vv /_ vv / _

The line MUST end with a disyllable - NG
The line should begin with a dactyl - NG

[verdict]
I need more work. Beware of the first foot.

Have I nailed all the errors? Some mines such as "pentameter should never end with a short -a," I this time happen to have avoided, but not knowingly. Which, I should write down and remember.

I never knew "is/ea/id" should be avoided, either. I must be careful not to casually grab it as always do in writing a prose.

In the latter document he hasn't mentioned "Hermann's bridge" (no word break in 4th foot in Homeric hexameter). In Metamorphoses I see it sometimes happen but not often. I guess I'd better try to avoid that, too.

Thanks again, mwh, and William Annis, the author yet to meet.

[Viviparidus]

I did my homework and tried to fix the verses in my last post so that it would fit the elegiac style, rules and such.

After the repairment, it may look as if it's an elegiac couplet, but I must say I'm so jumbled up counting meters the message doesn't seem to come forward. I miss my thrush, too. Maybe surgery is not such a good idea.

Anyway, I did have a good exercise to remember what I learned by fixing my mistakes. Now I'd better go and start afresh.

[before]
Sol me deducit turdique suave recantant
atqui secedo crus miserum medicans.
_ _ / _ _ / _ || _ / _ vv / _ vv / _ _
_ _ / _ _ / _ || _ vv /_ vv / _

[after]
Sol micat invitans et pica strenua cantat
at lacrimor lecto vulnea cruris alens.

[fixed problems]
1. First foot of each line should start with dactyl.
2. Adverbs should be avoided and be replaced by adjectives.
3. The pentameter must end with a disyllable.

[scansion]
So_l mi-cat /in-vi_/tans || et /pi_ca-que /stre_nu-a / can-tat
_ vv / _ _ / _ || _ / _ vv / _vv / _ _
at lac-ri-/mor lec-/to_ || vul-ne-a / cru_ris a-/lens.
_ vv / _ _ / _ || _ vv / _ vv/_

[vocaburary]
mico_ are
invi_to_ are
pi_ca ae f
stre_nu-us a um
lacrimor ari (dep = lacrimo
lec-tus i m
vulnus, neris, n
cru_s cru_ris n
a-lo_ ere

[mwh]

This is so much better! You’ve made tremendous progress.

You could avoid lengthening the second syllable of pica, which is displeasing, by pluralising. — But why not keep your thrush, et turdus?

lacrimor should be lacrimo. I’ve never seen the deponent.

1. First foot of each line should start with dactyl.

I don’t know what gave you that idea. You’ll be glad to hear it’s not true. Spondees are fine, both in hex and in pent.

3. The pentameter must end with a disyllable.

This is true once the super-refined Ovid enters the scene, but certainly not with Catullus. Still, it’s something to aim for.

A book I strongly recommend is L.P. Wilkinson’s Golden Latin Artistry. It’s an enlightening book, which goes beyond "rules" and brings poetic technique to life.

[Viviparidus]

mwh, thank you for your kind words of encouragement! If I made any progress, that's all because you most patiently helped me through my mess. Really, I can't thank you enough.

Let me explain why I did what I did trying to fix my first verses with the thrush. I tried to follow William's guidelines but maybe I tried too hard or misunderstood him.

1) Frist foot of each line should start with a dactyl.

-William says on hexameter as well as pentameter:
"The line should begin with a dactyl, an initial spondee being employed perhaps every six lines of hexameter."

And I figured I'd always better start with a dactyl, since so far I've only have two lines. I most certainly glad if it's not so!

3) The pentameter must end with a disyllable.

"This is true once the super-refined Ovid enters the scene, but certainly not with Catullus. Still, it’s something to aim for."

Wow, I'm so glad to hear this, too!

[lacrimor] You're right! "o" of "lacrimo_" is "long by nature!" Doh! I was so carried away counting consonants I missed the very basics. Fixed!!

[my lovely thrush]
I replaced him with a noisy magpie trying to avoid the molossus ("_ _ _" tur-dus-que or tur-di_-que) "AROUND" the caesura, but I found he said the molossus should be avoided "AFTER" the caesura. So it was OK in the first place. No wonder you asked me why I did it only to import the noisy magpie as well as the error.

Now reunited with my thrush, I should do something about "sua_ve, " as adverbs are not supposed to be very elegiac. How about "meloda, orum, n" which itself means "sweet songs?" Seems nice.

This is what I've got now:
Sol micat invitans turdique meloda recantant
at lacrimo lecto vulnea cruris alens.

So_l mi-cat / in-vi_/tans || tur-/di_que me-/lo_da re/can-tant
_ vv / _ _ / _ || _ / _ vv / _vv / _ _

at lac-ri-/mo_ lec-/to_ || vul-ne-a / cru_ris a-/lens.
_ vv / _ _ / _ || _ vv / _ vv/_

[new vocabulary]
me-lo_da orum, n, pl : TGINeutral

[lessons learned]
I won't try too hard meet every single rule William listed except for the absolute MUST such as no spondee in the fifth foot of hexameter, as I don't seem to have been Ovid in my former life. But will always remember them as the goal and try to achieve them.