Editing Dactylic hexameter (section)

===In French===
[[Jean-Antoine de Baïf]] (1532–1589) wrote poems regulated by [[Syllable weight|quantity]] on the Greco–Roman model, a system which came to be known as ''[[Musique mesurée#History|vers mesurés]]'', or ''vers mesurés à l'antique'', which the French language of the Renaissance permitted. To do this, he invented a special phonetic alphabet. In works like his ''Étrénes de poézie Franzoęze an vęrs mezurés'' (1574)<ref>See, for example, ''[https://virga.org/baif/index.php?item=166&metrique=1 Au Roi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180818214517/https://virga.org/baif/index.php?item=166&metrique=1 |date=2018-08-18 }}''.</ref> or ''Chansonnettes'' he used the dactylic hexameter, and other meters, in a quantitative way.

An example of one of his elegiac couplets is as follows. The final -e of {{lang|fr|vienne}}, {{lang|fr|autre}}, and {{lang|fr|regarde}} is sounded, and the word {{lang|fr|il}} is pronounced /i/:

:{{lang|fr|Vienne le / beau Nar/cis, qui ja/mais n'aima / autre si/non soi,}}
:{{lang|fr|Et qu'il re/garde te/s yeux, // Et, qu'il se / garde d'ai/mer.}}<ref>Jean-Antoine de Baïf, {{lang|fr|Chansonette}} XV.</ref>
:| – u u | – – | – u u | – – | – u u | – –
:| – u u | – u u | – || – u u | – u u | –
:"Let the handsome Narcissus come, who never loved another except himself,
:and let him look at your eyes, and let him try not to love you."

A modern attempt at reproducing the dactylic hexameter in French is this one, by André Markowicz (1985), translating Catullus's poem 63. Again the final -e and -es of {{lang|fr|pères}}, {{lang|fr|perfide}}, and {{lang|fr|désertes}} are sounded:

:{{lang|fr|C'est ain/si que tu / m'as arra/chée aux au/tels de mes / pères,}}
:{{lang|fr|Pour me lais/ser, per/fide Thé/sée, sur ces / rives dé/sertes ...}}<ref>André Markowicz, {{lang|fr|Le Livre de Catulle}}, éd. L'Âge d'Homme, 1985.</ref>
:| – – | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – |
:| – u u | – – | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – |
:"Is it for this that you have snatched me from the altars of my ancestors,
:to abandon me, traitorous Theseus, on these deserted shores?"