I’ve recently been looking at Catullus VIII. In lines 3, 8, and 15, “tibi” interrupts the technical flow of the meter. I’m aware that interrupting the flow of the meter is a poetic device in and of itself. However, I wanted to check with all of you to make sure I’m not missing some special poetic circumstance that would lengthen the final “i” of “tibi.” In each case “tibi” is followed by a single consonant (“soles” or “manet”) and in lines 3 and 8, “tibi” appears in the fifth foot (fourth foot in line 15).
My questions are: 1) Is there some circumstance which would lengthen the final “i” to force “tibi” to fit the meter? 2) If there is not, would one read this poem aloud so as to allow “tibi” to interrupt the limping iambic, or would one allow a small pause to preserve the rigidity of the meter?
In regards to the last question, I’ve listened to a sample of this poem read aloud online (it’s on Latinum now but it was on another site not too long ago) and the reader sounds as if he’s allowing “tibi” to be read as an iamb.
Thanks for any help in advance. Below is the text of the poem.
Chris
To elaborate, this is due to a phenomenon called iambic shortening, or “brevis brevians” (i.e. brevis [paenultima syllaba ultimam] brevians): in words of two syllables, where the first (stressed) was short, and the final originally had a long vowel, then that one had often been shortened, especially in common words, such as benĕ, malĕ, cit?, du?, eg?; in mihĭ, tibĭ, sibĭ the old forms with -ī existed in paralell with the more common ones ending in -ĭ.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t realize that brevis brevians was responsible for the forms (the only forms, I thought) of “tibi” and “mihi” with a final, short “i.” This explains away all my problems of scanning this poem, which, I may add, is one of my personal favorites.