Editing Dactylic hexameter (section)

===Metrical effects===

By the age of [[Augustus]], poets like [[Virgil]] closely followed the rules of the meter and approached it in a highly rhetorical way, looking for effects that can be exploited in skilled recitation{{cn|date=March 2025}}. For example, the following line from the ''Aeneid'' (8.596) describes the movement and sound of galloping horses:

:{{lang|la|quadrupe/dante pu/trem soni/tū quatit/ ungula/ campum}}
:"with four-footed sound the hoof shakes the crumbling plain"

This line is made up of five dactyls and a closing spondee, an unusual rhythmic arrangement that imitates the described action. A different effect is found in 8.452, where Virgil describes how the blacksmith sons of Vulcan forged Aeneas' shield. The five spondees and the word accents cutting across the verse rhythm give an impression of huge effort:

:{{lang|la|ill(ī) in/ter sē/sē mul/tā vī / bracchia / tollunt}}
:"They with much force raise their arms one after another"

A slightly different effect is found in the following line (3.658), describing the terrifying one-eyed giant Polyphemus, blinded by [[Odysseus|Ulysses]]. Here again there are five spondees but there are also three elisions, which cause the word accent of all the words but {{lang|la|ingens}} to coincide with the beginning of each foot:

:{{lang|la|monstr(um) hor/rend(um), in/form(e), in/gens, cui / lumen a/demptum}}
:"A horrendous huge shapeless monster, whose eye (lit. light) had been removed"

A succession of long syllables in some lines indicates slow movement, as in the following example where Aeneas and his companion the Sibyl (a priestess of Apollo) were entering the darkness of the world of the dead:

:{{lang|la|ibant / obscu/ri so/la sub / nocte per / umbram}}
:"they were going in the darkness beneath the lonely night through the shadow"

The following example (''Aeneid'' 2.9) describes how Aeneas is reluctant to begin his narrative, since it is already past midnight. The feminine caesura after {{lang|la|suadentque}} without a following 4th-foot caesura ensures that all the last four feet have word accent at the beginning, which is unusual.<ref name=Raven98>Raven (1965), p. 98.</ref> The monotonous effect is reinforced by the assonance of ''dent ... dent'' and the alliteration of S ... S:

:{{lang|la|... Et / iam nox / umida / caelo}}
:{{lang|la|praecipi/tat, sua/déntque ca/déntia / sídera / sómnos.}}
:"And already the moist night is falling from the sky
:and the setting constellations are inviting sleep"

Dactyls are associated with sleep again in the following unusual line, which describes the activity of a priestess who is feeding a magic serpent (''Aen.'' 4.486). In this line, there are five dactyls, and every one is accented on the first syllable:

:{{lang|la|spárgens / úmida / mélla so/pórife/rúmque pa/páver}}
:"sprinkling moist honey and sleep-inducing poppy"

A different technique, at 1.105, is used when describing a ship at sea during a storm. Here Virgil places a single-syllable word at the end of the line. This produces a jarring rhythm that echoes the crash of a large wave against the side of the ship:

:{{lang|la|... et undīs}}
:{{lang|la|dat latus;/ insequi/tur cumu/lo prae/ruptus a/quae mōns.}}
:"(The boat) gives its side to the waves; there immediately follows in a heap a steep mountain of water."

The Roman poet [[Horace]] uses a similar trick to highlight the comedic irony in this famous line from his ''[[Ars Poetica (Horace)|Ars Poetica]]'' (line 139):

:{{lang|la|Parturi/ent mon/tes, nas/cetur/ rīdicu/lus mūs}}
:"The mountains will be in labor, but all that will be born is a ridiculous ... mouse"<ref>Based on a traditional proverb. Cf. Jacobson, Howard (2007). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44079065 "Horace "AP" 139: parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220510190903/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44079065 |date=2022-05-10 }}. ''Museum Helveticum'', Vol. 64, No. 1 (März 2007), pp. 59–61. (JSTOR)</ref>

Usually in Latin the 5th foot of a hexameter is a dactyl. However, in his poem 64, Catullus several times uses a 5th foot spondee, which gives a Greek flavour to his verse,<ref name="Raven 1965, p. 92">Raven (1965), p. 92.</ref> as in this line describing the forested [[Vale of Tempe]] in northern Greece:

:{{lang|la|Tempe, / quae sil/vae cin/gunt super /<u>impen</u>/dentes,}}
:"Tempe, which woods surround, hanging over it"

Virgil also occasionally imitates Greek practice, for example, in the first line of his 3rd Eclogue:

:{{lang|la|dīc mihi, / Dāmoe/tā, cu/ium pecus? // an Meli/boei?}}
:"Tell me, Damoetas, whose cattle are these? Are they Meliboeus's?"

Here there is a break in sense after a 4th-foot dactyl, a feature known as a bucolic diaeresis,<ref>From the Greek {{lang|grc|βουκόλος}} ({{grc-transl|βουκόλος}}) "looking after cattle".</ref> because it is frequently used in Greek [[pastoral]] poetry. In fact it is common in Homer too (as in the first line of the ''Odyssey'' quoted above), but rare in Latin epic.<ref>Bassett (1905).</ref>