i’m giving it a test run and I am liking it very much. However, I’m stuck!!
(perhaps this ought to be moved to the greek forum at this point)
I’m trying to say:
standing in the pleasant garden I
am receiving all the gifts of Apollo (i.e. sunrays)
but but but … paradeisos has 2 short syllables at the start! But the only place where 2 short syllables can occur is at the end of a line. So, can I break up the word and have it flow into the second line, or should I overstep the boundary you have placed on the beginner and use resolution to try to solve the problem?
(I suppose I could use khpos - but I leave my question out of interest and for the benefit of the senate and the people of Rome/Athens.)
Hi Kasper, it’s great to see that you’re composing iambics! And thanks for trying out my article
I haven’t seen a word split over 2 lines in the tragedies I’ve read so I would suggest either resolving the syllable (as you suggest) or changing the word to a synonym: there’s often a most appropriate or idiomatic verb to use, but you can express substantives in lots of different ways.
If you want your particular word though, definitely use resolution Books like Sidgwick’s and Rouse’s will explain all the details of useful tricks you can use to squeeze in words, such as resolution, crasis and metrical variants. My article is just to help get people started Good luck and thanks again! Cheers, Chad.
It’s a bit unusual, but since it’s following a single noun phrase (all the gifts), I think it might be ok. I’d be inclined to avoid it if possible.
ps. I realise it is a bit different from what I set out to do, but it’s pretty hard! (for me)
It is difficult. So you’re going to get a few comments.
First, Greek is fairly hostile to hiatus - two vowels meeting at word boundaries. And iambic verse is especially hostile to hiatus, so when a final vowel is followed by a word starting in a vowel, you need to elide it if that’s possible, or avoid that combination if not. So, in the first line you have two hiatus: τῷ ἠδεῖ θεοῦ κήπῳ ἐγὼ, and another in the last line.
Next, a very common error is: ἐν τῷ. Since the following word starts with a consonant, ἐν scans long.
Finally, )απόλλωνος (no tau).
I’m also a bit concerned about your caesurae here. Since the first clause uses a participle, I’d drop the δέ and make the gifts plural; then you’d get a nice 3rd foot caesura:
τὰ δῶρα πάντα λαμβάνω … (though this will not fix the hiatus with Apollo here).
I talk a bit (and somewhat cryptically, I admit) about the available substitutions and caesura in my intro to Greek meter, in the section “Attack of the Two Foot Metron.”
I thought I made it a bit too easy by using so many 2 syllable words, which of course make the iambics easier to do.
So the hiatus (yawn?) means a word ending in a vowel, followed by a word starting in one? I’ll try to avoid that next time.
As for the caesura, my latin knowledge tells me it has to do with cutting / separating things, I assume words in this case. Apart from that, I have no idea what you are talking about…
Since pa=n does exist in singular, could it be considered to mean the whole gift?
I’ll have look at your site later though, apart from being hard, it is pretty fun to do! Writing is afterall the best way to learn a language.
As for the caesura, my latin knowledge tells me it has to do with cutting / separating things, I assume words in this case. Apart from that, I have no idea what you are talking about…
In a lot of these popular meters there is a place in the line where a sense or phrasing pause occurs, known as the caesura of the line. In iambics it is either after the 5th or (about 25% of the time) 7th position. The sense break may be very weak indeed, but at the very least there needs to be a word break at one of those two places. Usually you don’t want a preposition or an article right before the caesura boundary. All sorts of trickiness can come into play here, but my comments should be enough for now.
Since pa=n does exist in singular, could it be considered to mean the whole gift?
Yes, when it comes after the article.
I’ll have look at your site later though, apart from being hard, it is pretty fun to do! Writing is afterall the best way to learn a language.
I agree.
EDIT: (my own examples removed; neither quite right)
Hi Kasper, you’ve done really well! now it’s just a matter of playing around with it as Will suggests. If you see other verse composition threads here on textkit you’ll see we all go through this ‘editing’ phase, it’s a normal part of verse composition for everyone
Concerning hiatus and caesura, I tried to set up my article so that, if you follow the technique, all those (and other) rules would be automatically obeyed… e.g. Table A and Table B, if used, automatically satisfy the caesura or ‘cut’ which occurs after the 5th or 7th syllable respectively. That’s why there’s 2 tables. In iambics, there usually isn’t a sense pause or anything at the caesura, so you don’t need to know about the caesura at all if you use the tables Later on you might want to use the “quasi-caesura” if you need to, but that’s not necessary as a beginner (that’s having a caesura after the 6th syllable using an elided 6th syllable).
Re the hiatus, one of my 3 “final tips” in section 3 is
Try not to use a word beginning with a vowel if the word before it (in the same line) ends with a vowel.
That’s hiatus. Another one of those 3 tips is:
Watch out for the rhythm of the last syllable of words changing once you’ve put them into a line. E.g., if you start a line with > qe/lousi > short-long-short > and then add > ktei/nein > long-long> , your line will be incorrect. The “kt” in > ktei/nein > will change the short last syllable of the previous word > qe/lousi > into a long, and so > qe/lousi ktei/nein > will have the rhythm > short-long-long-long-long> , which can’t fit into iambic verse.
That came up in your verses with e)n tw=| in your line 1 and dw=ron pa=n (and in the last word of line 2, which Will has corrected and will need to be changed or moved around, which shouldn’t be a problem).
This stuff is hard and so I’m definitely impressed how quickly you’ve picked it up! You’ll find it worth the effort I’m sure
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