Ovid, Metam, XI, lns. 373-4
A ravening wolf attacks the keepers of a herd.
pars quoque /de no/bis fu/nesto/ saucia /morsu,[373]
_ u u / _ _/ _ _/ _ _/ _ uu/ _ _
dum de/fensamus, leto est/ data; /sanguine/ litus[374]
_ _ / _ _/ _ _ / _ _ / _ u u/ _ x
Note on 373: to me this scan seemed not to hard.
Notes on 374:
fensamus: elided, a+m; spondee; hard call for me
leto est: elided, o+e; spondee; hard call for me
373 is right.
374: dum de / fen sa / mus let’ / est da ta / san gui ne / li tus
_ _ / _ _ / _ // _ / _ u u / _ u u /_ x
Elision of Vm before a V occurs only at word-end, not within words.
data agrees with pars and is nominative. Both a’s are short.
You should always mark the main caesura. This is more important than the divisions between feet.
I definitely hear the message about the caesura, but I’m not sure I understand it. So I did some reading, and here is my trial-understanding: a caesura happens when a word-ending does not coincide with the beginning or end of a metrical foot. When reading, the caesura is marked by a vocal pause that interrupts the normal rhythm of the line.
But, even if I got the above right, I don’t understand the poetic purpose of a caesura.
The main caesuras separate lines into two (or sometimes three) half-lines. They occur either in the third foot, usually after the initial long (masculine), but sometimes after the first short (feminine), or after the initial longs of the second and fourth feet. They’re a key element in the rhythm of hexameter verse. They don’t necessary articulate the verse in a way that is related to the meaning (though they often do), just as a break in meaning doesn’t always occur at the end of the line (when enjambment occurs). But, as I mentioned, caesuras are fundamental to the rhythm of the hexameter, and you need to feel the way the main caesuras articulate the rhythm as you read metrically.
Yes, it looks like you understand what a caesura is. Precise definition is elusive, but it’s not called a caesura if you have a word-break between feet rather than within them.
How you actualize it vocally is another matter. I wouldn’t pause unless there’s a syntactical break of some kind (as there often but not invariably is), and I wouldn’t let it spoil the ongoing rhythm of the line. It can be a bit of a balancing act between the built-in dactylic rhythm (which should never become unrecognizable) and a given verse’s syntactical and metrical articulation. It’s not a simple matter, whatever rules you’re given. Eventually you won’t go looking for “the caesura” (or caesurae) at all (poets didn’t think in terms of caesurae, they’re an invention of metricians), you’ll instinctively recognize the structure of each line as you read through it. But that may take a while
As to what it does, its “poetic purpose” (I would prefer “function”), well, basically it gives the line shape. Note in particular that the line is prevented from falling into two halves. Word-break is avoided in mid-line (between 3rd and 4th feet). That’s even more important than caesura. My earlier post tried to explain something of the dynamics.
EDIT. Qimmik just beat me to it. I hope these are complementary responses.
Thanks to Qimmik and mwh for the elaboration. This will take time for me. In music I have to work hard on rhythm. When beginning in it, I told my teacher, “I’m having a hard time getting this rhythm, the dotted-quarter-note followed by the eighth-note.”
His reply: “The dotted-quarter-note followed by the eighth-note–that’s a whole lot of music right there.”
You can in fact think of dactylic meters as being in 2/4 time. L = quarter-note, S = eighth-note. That’s essentially how the ancient metricians analyzed them. Each foot falls into 2 equal parts, a quarter-note and then either a pair of eighth-notes or another quarter-note. (In their terms, a short took up 1 “mora,” and a long took up 2.) When you mark off the individual feet as you have been doing, you’re effectively marking bar lines. You might try reading it this way (perhaps you have been already), stressing the first part of each foot; I call that bashing the beat. I think it’s a good thing to do in the preliminary stages of reading hexameters aloud. It will certainly implant the meter into your head.
BUT, as we’ve been saying, that does not reflect the internal movement of the hexameter (its “inner metric”), which propels the line right over its mid-point (end of 3rd foot) and tends to have word-breaks at particular points within the feet (caesurae); and there’s little reason to think that the first syllable of each foot was in fact stressed. So don’t go marching to it! and the sooner you get beyond reading it simply as a succession of individual feet, the better. It’s a flexible rhythm.
You got me, mwh; I’ve been slapping time as you suggest. It seemed to me that something like 2/4 time might fit.
Can you identify online readings that help students having trouble with the strangeness of Latin verse?
I
I’ve answered your query in a separate topic.