Salvete.
I’m new to Latin poetry and am trying to understand this epigram in terms of syllable length and feet.
Quem recitas meus est, o Fidentine, libellus.
Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus.
I’m thinking that it’s a hexameter followed by a pentameter but how this works in terms of feet escapes me. Would anyone care to help with the scansion of this elegiac couplet (I think)?
Is ‘tuus’ somehow a single long syllable?
I thought I was making good progress but I’m foxed.
Martial 1.38. Scansion?
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Re: Martial 1.38. Scansion?
I apologise for not thinking more clearly as I now realise that ‘tuus’ is a short syllable followed by a long one. It all seems clear to me now.
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Re: Martial 1.38. Scansion?
I suggest you study what I wrote in reply to your earlier query on Ovid Amores 3.2.
You can probably/hopefully see that the first half of the hexameter in Martial’s epigram scans exactly the same as the first half of the pentameter—and so does the pentameter’s second half. That leaves only the latter part of the hexameter to figure out.
And do you understand what it's saying?
You can probably/hopefully see that the first half of the hexameter in Martial’s epigram scans exactly the same as the first half of the pentameter—and so does the pentameter’s second half. That leaves only the latter part of the hexameter to figure out.
And do you understand what it's saying?