by Didymus » Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:44 pm
Yes, what you've got is now metrical. I'm a little skeptical about nihilum (at any rate in elegiacs, and probably in general in the nominative), and I think you've lost something by no longer having mihi. Nevertheless, how much you want to continue to tinker is up to you. It doesn't make sense to obsess over it too much. If you do want to keep playing with it, don't feel tied to what you've already got: for example, a moment's thought will call to mind that an alternative to quam in comparisons is the simple ablative. Amicus is obviously integral to the line, and amico will want to stand only at the end, as you've placed it. What can come before it? Again, to keep one of your words, peius will do nicely. A bit of polyptoton might be fun, and so we might think of malum, which is a fine iamb to stand after a trochaic caesura (you must place an iamb there!). You could then follow it with mihi, and the second half of your line is complete. You still want something expressing the notion of "fortunate" in the first half; a word for rejoicing might do, and a present participle can end with the short that you need before the trochaic caesura: try gaudente, which will create the expected strong caesura in the second foot to support the trochaic in the third. Now you just need something to introduce the line: I liked the idea of a rhetorical question, so how about esse potest? Altogether then: esse potest gaudente malum mihi peius amico?
I don't put that forward as "the" solution but rather as one of many possible lines; you can probably come up with far better ones. I've explained how I got there only because I wish when I was just starting out I would have had someone explain his thought process to me!
