Vowels, dipthongs and consonants

vowels
- aeiouy
- āēīōūȳ

dipthongs
- ae au ei oe
- eu ui (sometimes dipthong, usually two syllas: ĕu ŭi)

consonants
- bcdfghiklmnprstvxz 
- qu
- ch ph th


vwl  a       e       i           o            u       y
cst    b c d   f g h i   k l m n   p qu r s t   v   x   z
DNE                    j                          w

syllable length

  • heavy by nature
    • contain a long vowel OR a dipthong
  • heavy by position
    • a vowel is followed by two consonants

Heavy by position:

  • x (= c+s or g+s) and z (= d+s) count as two consonants
  • ignore h
  • qu counts as one consonant
  • i is sometimes a consonant
  • stop + liquid rule
    • stops: B P / C G / D T
    • liquids: L R
    • where a stop is followed by a liquid, the syllable that precedes this combination may be heavy or light

Usually light vowels:

  • preceding another vowel
    • exceptions:
      • the first vowel in dipthongs
      • some greek wards (Phoebēā, Aenēās)
  • -ĭbŭs (dat. abl. PL ending for 3rd/4th conjs
  • -quĕ (either as enclitic or as part of a word)

a

Latin poetry
most latin poems are not based on rhyme as in some english poetry, instead it's based on patterns of heavy and light syllables.

scanning = working out which syllables are heavy

long, short = whether there is a macron or not
heavy, light = emphasis in the metre. heavy syllables are held for longer than light syllables, but be careful, long and short refer to something else in this context.

long/short syllables are semi-determined by macrons.
- a syllable with a macron = definitely long for poetry
- a syllable without a macron = maybe long, maybe short

Scansion rules I
How do you spot long vs short syllables?
two consonants after vowel automatically makes it long. this applies across words, but normally doesn't apply across lines. This is technically "a closed syllable followed by a syllable beginning with a consonant". A closed syllable is a syllable ending with a consonant. E.g. means the "u" in "nutrices" isn't necessarily heavy because it may be nu-tri-ces or nut-ri-ces. See the "stop + liquid rule"

knowing where macrons are by memorising word ending patterns, or looking the word up in the dictionary, if macrons aren't provided with the text. (Romans had an intuition for it because familiarity with the language, so they could scan automatically, like Mr Brophy.)
checking the syllables around it are heavy or light as some patterns are impossible.
counting, e.g. 4 feet of 12 syllables has to be all dactyls
dipthongs are long
I think ellisions are also always long, but I'm not sure.

scansion is important because plain reading roman poems is like plain reading a rap. You gotta rap it with the rhythm for it to come alive. and scansion is figuring out the rhythm.

  • ig you wouldn't caesura if there's an ellision there - you can't because the ellision is 1 syllable
  • basically one long word
  • for scansion purposes, 'h' is ignored
  • 11 syllables = 1 spondee in the line. This means if you locate 3 continuous longs, you're done, because you've found the spondee.
  • two vowels next to each other in the same word = two syllables (if not dipthong)

v called a breve

Caesura /səsuːa/ conventionally marked with "//" and comes

-vv | - // vv | - // vv | - // vv | -vv | -x
- - | - // -  | - // -  | - // -  |
       here     or here   or here.
  • it's supposed to happen in every line of hexametre, rarely is missing
  • prefers being in the third foot, then the second foot, then the third foot
  • can only come after a word
  • purpose: breathe mark so that poets can breathe
  • usually occurs in the middle of the line
    • if it was at the end then you would have -vv -x // all the time, which is repetitive. middle of the line allows more variation.
  • often if a poem has modern punctuation it would be where the commas are.

ignore punctuation while scanning because romans didn't have punctuation (000tb)

Scansion for beginners

  • hard to identify shorts, easier to find longs
  • write out the line without punctuation
  • marks go over vowels, not consonants
  • can put a cross (anceps) on the last syllable
  • use a vertical line to separate feet; make sure it goes between syllables
  • patterns like
  -  v - -
  imperator

are not possible because dactyls and spondees can't make -v-

  • treat "qu" like one consonant for the purposes of scansion
  • is the i in maior a consonant?
  • useful notation: put dots under double consonants
  • HSC scansion will never have macrons
  • scansion can help with meaning
  • "-o" and "-i" at the end of words are always long
  • "-ibus" always has short i and short u
  • ia and ie are not dipthongs
  • aei is two syllables
  • exceptions to the double consonant rule: pr, cr, tr. For br and gr the preceding vowel is usually long, but not always.
  • for texts without V, a u between two vowels is usually long

syllable chart (for 4 feet of hexametre)

syllables   spondees   dactyls
    8          4          0
    9          3          1
   10          2          2
   11          1          3
   12          0          4

poets don't like to have a word boundary at the same times as a food boundary, especially in the first half of the foot. Mr Brophy says avoiding those makes the poem more fluent

it's a common pattern in hexametre lines to have a noun at the end of the line which is being described by an adjective further back

e.g. metamorphoses 1B 188-202