I wanted to analyse verses from Homer for my bachelor’s thesis, and I’m at a loss how to write down scansion.
Specifically I’m trying to check if some specific words indicating supplication (like γουνάζομαι, λίσσομαι, ἱκετεύω etc.) could possibly be replaced by another one while maintaining the hexameter. That’s because if it can be, I can be sure that this specific term is there for a reason, not just to fit into the meter. They carry different etymological “tastes” so it’s likely important for deeper analysis of supplication scenes.
So far it looks to me like it’s being done on separate lines of text, like in this example from Wikipedia:
μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
mênin áeide, theá, Pēlēïádeō Akhilêos
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achillesμῆ-νιν ἄ / ει-δε, θε / ά, Πη / λη-ϊ-ά / δεω Ἀ-χι / λῆ-ος
mê-nin á / ei-de, the / á, Pē / lē-ï-á / deō A-khi / lê-os
| – u u | – u u | –, – | – u u | – u u | – – |
It seems unwieldy to me, and scanned lines on hypotactic.com use some homebrew format that is not copy-paste’able.
Does it mean I just have to write it down on separate lines and be done with it? Like this:
| – u u | – u u | –, – | – u u | – u u | – – |
μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
Or this:
| – u u | – u u | –, – | – u u | – u u | – – |
μῆ-νιν ἄ / ει-δε, θε / ά, Πη / λη-ϊ-ά / δεω Ἀ-χι / λῆ-ος
I tried fooling around with [U+0304 $COMBINING_MACRON ̄] and [U+0306 $COMBINING_BREVE ̆], but it’s pretty unwieldy to paste them every time I need them, and it doesn’t really help with clearly marking syllables. Not to mention how much manual work it would require for me to do this to all the lines I’m working with, but I think that’s unavoidable at this point.
I tried combining sign put before vovel (looks better with some fixed width fonts)
μ̄ῆ-ν̆ιν ̆ἄ / ε̄ι-δ̆ε, θ̆ε / ̄ά, Π̄η / λ̄η-̆ϊ-̆ά / δε̄ω ̆Ἀ-χ̆ι / λ̄ῆ-̄ος
Or combining sign put after vovel (looks better with most fonts)
μῆ̄-νῐν ἄ̆ / εῑ-δε̆, θε̆ / ά̄, Πη̄ / λη̄-ϊ̆-ά̆ / δεω̄ Ἀ̆-χῐ / λῆ̄-ο̄ς
Or with double combining variants:
μ͞ῆ-ν͝ιν ͝ἄ / ε͞ι-δ͝ε, θ͝ε / ͞ά, Π͞η / λ͞η-͝ϊ-͝ά / δε͞ω ͝Ἀ-χ͝ι / λ͞ῆ-͞ος
That’s not really readable, is it? Maybe the double width one. I don’t really have to make it that much readable, I can just use it like this for myself and not show it in my final work. Although that doesn’t seem very professional to me.
Maybe I’m missing something. Hypotactic has a pretty looking scanned Aeneid in multi-variant(v/u i/j) PDF form, but I don’t know how to format it nicely like this. Is it the “LaTeX” magic I heard so much about?
Another thing:
is there an easy to use tool to help with manual scansion (when you don’t know the verse structure) for Greek? Collatinus was a huge help when I practiced ancient prosody on Latin, but sadly it’s sister project Eulexis can’t scan Greek.
Knowing how existing Homer verses fit into hexameter from pre-made scans won’t really help me with the real issue of trying out plausible substitutions.