Scanning Iliad 1.3

Greek Homeric Greek and Early Greek Poetry
1

I’m now pretty comfortable with the metrics of the first two lines of the Iliad based on the discussion in Pharr and elsewhere, but I’m stuck with line 3 based on the rules I’ve learnt. I can hear the vowel lengths in the first two lines in the Annis recordings but they all sound equal in the recording for line 3, probably because I’m not used to thinking in hexameter.

Could someone let me know how this should scan using the —uu notation?

At the moment I have:
πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
——|——|——|—uu|—uu|——
——(ὰ indeterminate but followed by two consonants so long) | —— (spondee because ου in next foot must be long as not followed by vowel) |—— (ὰ in ψυχὰς naturally long so not dactyl, and υ therefore also long) | —uu | —uu (ι first in foot and followed by two consonants) | —— (spondee because final foot)

2

πολλὰς is a f. acc. pl. first/second declension adjective, so you can know that the α is long from grammar, and not indeterminate. It’s the consonant stem nouns and adjectives that have a short α in the acc. pl.

Everything else looks good.

3

Thanks! I’m planning to commit the first few lines to memory so it’s a huge help knowing I’ve not completely messed it up.

4

That sounds like a great plan. Two suggestions. 1) Be sure to commit the written version to memory and practice writing it out with all accents. Otherwise your vocal version will muddle vowels and misplace accents. 2) Make sure to know where the caesura is in the line

5

That’s good advice - I’m not really sure how much of a breather to take at the caesura.

6

Don’t exaggerate the caesura, but make sure you feel it.