Editing Dactylic hexameter (section)

== In Latin ==
[[File:AENEIS.png|thumb|Diagramming of the opening lines of the ''[[Aeneid]]'']]

The dactylic hexameter was adapted from Greek to Latin{{r|raven1965|p=91}}. Though the metre was taken from Greek unaltered, the Latin language has a higher proportion of long syllables than Greek, and so it is by nature more spondaic{{r|raven1965|p=91}}. Additionally, the Roman poets did not avoid the weak caesura in the fourth foot as much as the Greeks did{{r|raven1965|p=98}}.

=== Ennius ===

The earliest example of hexameter in Latin poetry is the panegyric history of Rome, ''Annales'', by [[Ennius]]{{r|king2009|p=137}}, establishing a standard for later Latin epics. Ennius experimented with different kinds of lines{{cn|date=March 2025}}, for example, lines with five dactyls:

:{{lang|la|tum tuba / terribi/li soni/tu tara/tantara / dixit}}<ref>Ennius ap. Prisc. p. 842 P. (Ann. v. 452 Vahl.)</ref>
:"Then the trumpet with terrifying sound went 'taratantara!'"

or lines consisting entirely of spondees:

:{{lang|la|olli / respon/dit rex / Alba/i Lon/gai}}<ref>Ennius, ''Annales'' 1.31.</ref>
:"To him replied the king of Alba Longa"

lines without a caesura{{r|raven1965|p=95}}:

:{{lang|la|sparsis / hastis / longis / campus / splendet et / horret}}<ref>Ennius, ''Varia'' 14V.</ref>
:"With scattered long spears the plain gleams and bristles"

lines ending in a one-syllable word or in words of more than three syllables{{r|raven1965|p=99}}:

:{{lang|la|unus ho/mo no/bis cunc/tando / restitu/it rem}}<ref>Ennius ''Annales'' 370.</ref>
:"A single man, by delaying, restored the situation for us."

:{{lang|la|nec m(i) au/rum pos/co nec /mi preti/um dede/ritis}}
:{{lang|la|non cau/ponan/tes bel/lum sed / bellige/rantes}}<ref>Ennius, ''Annales'' 194–5.</ref>
:"I do not demand gold for myself nor should you give me a price:
:not buying and selling war, but waging it"

or even lines starting with two short syllables{{r|raven1965|p=92}}:
:{{lang|la|melanu/rum, tur/dum, meru/lamqu(e) um/bramque ma/rinam}}<ref>Ennius, ''Varia 42V.''</ref>
: | u u – | – – | –, u u | – – | – u u | – –
:"the blacktail, the rainbow wrasse, the bird wrasse, and the maigre" (kinds of fish)

However, most of these features were abandoned by later writers or used only occasionally for special effect{{cn|date=March 2025}}.

===Later writers===

Later Republican writers, such as [[Lucretius]], [[Catullus]], and even [[Cicero]], wrote hexameter compositions, and it was at this time that the principles of Latin hexameter were firmly established and followed by later writers such as [[Virgil]], [[Horace]], [[Ovid]], [[Marcus Annaeus Lucanus|Lucan]], and [[Satires of Juvenal|Juvenal]]{{cn|date=March 2025}}. [[Virgil]]'s opening line for the ''[[Aeneid]]'' is a classic example:

:{{lang|la|Arma vi/rumque ca/nō, Trō/iae quī/ prīmus ab/ ōrīs}} 
:"I sing of arms and of the man who first from the shores of Troy ..."

In Latin, lines were arranged so that the metrically long syllables —- those occurring at the beginning of a foot -— often avoided the natural stress of a word. In the earlier feet of a line, meter and stress were expected to clash, while in the last two feet they were expected to coincide, as in {{lang|la|prímus ab/ óris}} above. The coincidence of word accent and meter in the last two feet could be achieved by restricting the last word to one of two or three syllables.<ref>Raven (1965), pp. 98–101.</ref>

Most lines (about 85% in Virgil){{cn|date=March 2025}} have a caesura or word division after the first syllable of the 3rd foot, as above {{lang|la|ca/nō}}. Because of the penultimate accent in Latin, this ensures that the word accent and meter will not coincide in the 3rd foot. But in those lines with a feminine or weak caesura, such as the following, there is inevitably a coincidence of meter and accent in the 3rd foot{{r|raven1965|p=98}}:

:{{lang|la|insequi/tur cla/<u>mórque</u> vi/rum stri/dórque ru/déntum}}
:"there follows shouting of men and rattling of ropes"

To offset this, whenever there was a feminine caesura in the 3rd foot, there was usually also a masculine caesura in the 2nd and 4th feet, to ensure that in those feet at least, the word accent and meter did not coincide.

===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>

===Stylistic features of epic===
Certain stylistic features are characteristic of epic hexameter poetry, especially as written by Virgil.

====Enjambment====
Hexameters are frequently [[Enjambment|enjambed]]—the meaning runs over from one line to the next, without terminal punctuation—which helps to create the long, flowing narrative of epic. Sentences can also end in different places in the line, for example, after the first foot.<ref>Raven (1965), pp. 102–103.</ref> In this, classical epic differs from medieval Latin, where the lines are often composed individually, with a break in sense at the end of each one.

====Poetic vocabulary====
Often in poetry ordinary words are replaced by poetic ones, for example {{lang|la|unda}} or {{lang|la|lympha}} for water, {{lang|la|aequora}} for sea, {{lang|la|puppis}} for ship, {{lang|la|amnis}} for river, and so on. Some ordinary Latin words are avoided, e.g. {{lang|la|audiunt, mīlitēs, hominibus, facilius, mulierēs, familiae, voluptātibus}} etc., simply because they cannot be fitted into a hexameter verse.

====Hyperbaton====
It is common in poetry for adjectives to be widely separated from their nouns, and quite often one adjective–noun pair is interleaved with another. This feature is known as [[hyperbaton]] "stepping over". An example is the opening line of Lucan's epic on the Civil War:

:{{lang|la|<u>bella</u> per Emathios – plus quam <u>civilia</u> – campos}}
:"Wars through the Emathian – more than civil – plains"

Another example is the opening of Ovid's mythological poem [[Metamorphoses]] where the word {{lang|la|nova}} "new" is in a different line from {{lang|la|corpora}} "bodies" which it describes:

:{{lang|la|in <u>nova</u> fert animus mutatas dicere formas / <u>corpora</u>}} (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.1)
:"My spirit leads me to tell of forms transformed into new bodies."

One particular arrangement of words that seems to have been particularly admired is the [[golden line]],<ref>The term {{lang|la|aureus versus}} was first used in print in 1612: John Owen, epigram 5.51.</ref> a line which contains two adjectives, a verb, and two nouns, with the first adjective corresponding to the first noun such as:

:{{lang|la|<u>barbara</u>qu(e) horribili stridebat <u>tibia</u> cantu}}<ref>Catullus, 64.265.</ref>
:"and the barbarian pipe was strident with horrible music"

Catullus was the first to use this kind of line, as in the above example. Later authors used it rarely (1% of lines in Ovid), but in silver Latin it became increasingly popular.<ref>Heikkinen (2015), p. 61.</ref>

====Alliteration and assonance====
{{main|Alliteration (Latin)}}
Virgil in particular used alliteration and assonance frequently, although it is much less common in Ovid. Often more than one consonant was alliterated and not necessarily at the beginning of words, for example:
:{{lang|la|at ReGina GRavi iamdudum sauCia Cura}}
:{{lang|la|VuLNus aLit VeNis et CaeCo Carpitur igni.}}<ref>Virgil, ''Aen.'' 4.1–2.</ref>
:"But the queen, now long wounded by grave anxiety,
:feeds the wound in her veins and is tormented by an unseen fire"

Also in Virgil:
:{{lang|la|LoCa NoCTe TaCeNTia LaTe}}<ref>Virgil, ''Aen.'' 6.265.</ref> "places silent with night everywhere"
:{{lang|la|iLLae Remis VaDa LiViDa VeRRunt}}<ref>Virgil, ''Aen.'' 6.320.</ref> "those ones with oars sweep the dark shallows"

Sometimes the same vowel is repeated:
:{{lang|la|m<u>ē</u>, m<u>ē</u>, adsum qui f<u>ē</u>ci, in m<u>ē</u> conv<u>er</u>tite f<u>er</u>rum}}<ref>Virgil, ''Aen.'' 9.427.</ref>
:"on me, me, I who did it am here, turn your swords on me!"

:{{lang|la|n<u>e</u>c fr<u>e</u>na r<u>e</u>mittit, / n<u>e</u>c r<u>e</u>tiN<u>e</u>re val<u>e</u>t, N<u>e</u>c N<u>o</u>mina N<u>o</u>vit equ<u>o</u>rum}}<ref>Ovid, ''Met.''  2.192.</ref>
:"he does not let go of the reins, but he is not strong enough to hold them back, and he does not know the names of the horses"

====Rhetorical techniques====
Rhetorical devices such as anaphora, antithesis, and rhetorical questions are frequently used in epic poetry. Tricolon is also common:
:{{lang|la|haec omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est;}}
:{{lang|la|portitor ille Charon; hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti.}}<ref>Virgil, ''Aen.'' 6.325–6.</ref>
:"All this crowd that you see, are the poor and unburied;
:that ferryman is Charon; these, that the wave is carrying, are the buried."

====Genre of subject matter====
The poems of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid often vary their narrative with speeches. Well known examples are the speech of Queen Dido cursing Aeneas in book 4 of the ''Aeneid'', the lament of the nymph Juturna when she is unable to save her brother Turnus in book 12 of the ''Aeneid'', and the quarrel between Ajax and Ulysses over the arms of Achilles in book 13 of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. Some speeches are themselves narratives, as when Aeneas tells Queen Dido about the fall of Troy and his voyage to Africa in books 2 and 3 of the ''Aeneid''. Other styles of writing include vivid descriptions, such as Virgil's description of the god Charon in ''Aeneid'' 6, or Ovid's description of Daedalus's labyrinth in book 8 of the ''Metamorphoses''; similes, such as Virgil's comparison of the souls of the dead to autumn leaves or clouds of migrating birds in ''Aeneid'' 6; and lists of names, such as when Ovid names 36 of the dogs who tore their master Actaeon to pieces in book 3 of the ''Metamorphoses''.

===Conversational style===
Raven<ref>Raven (1965), pp. 94–5.</ref> divides the various styles of the hexameter in classical Latin into three types: the early stage (Ennius), the fully developed type (Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid, with Lucretius about midway between Ennius and Cicero), and the conversational type, especially Horace, but also to an extent Persius and Juvenal. One feature which marks these off is their often irregular line endings (for example, words of one syllable)<ref>Raven (1965), p. 102.</ref> and also the very conversational, un-epic style. Horace in fact called his [[satires (Horace)|satires]] {{lang|la|sermones}} ("conversations"). The word order and vocabulary is much as might be expected in prose. An example is the opening of the 9th satire of book 1:

:{{lang|la|Ibam forte Via Sacra, sicut meus est mos,}}
:{{lang|la|nescio quid meditans nugarum, totus in illis:}}
:{{lang|la|accurrit quidam notus mihi nomine tantum:}}
:{{lang|la|arreptaque manu, 'quid agis, dulcissime rerum?'}}

:"I was walking by chance along the Sacred Way, as is my custom,
:meditating on some trifle or other, completely absorbed in it,
:when suddenly up ran a certain person known to me by name only.
:He grabbed my hand and said 'How are you, sweetest of things?'"

===Silver Age and Late Empire===

The verse innovations of the Augustan writers were carefully imitated by their successors in the Silver Age of [[Latin literature]]. The verse form itself then was little changed as the quality of a poet's hexameter was judged against the standard set by Virgil and the other Augustan poets, a respect for literary precedent encompassed by the Latin word ''{{lang|la|aemulātiō}}''.<ref>E.g., the younger Pliny, in referring to an orator who prided himself on not attempting to rival Cicero, replied, ''{{lang|la|Est enim ... mihi cum Cicerōne aemulātiō, nec sum contentus ēloquentiā saeculī nostrī; nam stultissimum crēdō ad imitandum nōn optima quaeque prōpōnere.}}'' ("I do attempt to emulate Cicero, as I am not content with the eloquence of our age; I think it's idiotic not to imitate the best examples.") – ''Letters'' I.5.12–3</ref> Deviations were generally regarded as idiosyncrasies or hallmarks of personal style and were not imitated by later poets. [[Juvenal]], for example, was fond of occasionally creating verses that placed a sense break between the fourth and fifth foot (instead of in the usual caesura positions), but this technique—known as the bucolic diaeresis—did not catch on with other poets.

In the late empire, writers experimented again by adding unusual restrictions to the standard hexameter. The rhopalic<ref>from the Greek {{lang|grc|ῥόπᾰλον}} {{grc-transl|ῥόπᾰλον}} "a club", which is narrow at one end and gets wider.</ref> verse of [[Ausonius]] is a good example; besides following the standard hexameter pattern, each word in the line is one syllable longer than the previous, e.g.:

:{{lang|la|Spēs, deus, / aeter/nae stati/ōnis / concili/ātor,}}
:{{lang|la|sī cas/tīs preci/bus veni/ālēs / invigi/lāmus,}}
:{{lang|la|hīs, pater, / ōrā/tis plā/cābili/s adstipu/lāre.}}<ref>Ausonius, {{lang|la|Oratio Consulis Ausonii Versibus Rhopalicis}}.</ref>

:"O God, Hope of Eternal Life, Conciliator,
:if, with chaste entreaties, hoping for pardon, we keep vigil,
:look kindly on us and grant these prayers."

Also notable is the tendency among late grammarians to thoroughly dissect the hexameters of Virgil and earlier poets. A treatise on poetry by [[Diomedes Grammaticus]] is a good example, as this work categorizes dactylic hexameter verses in ways that were later interpreted under the [[golden line]] rubric. Independently, these two trends show the form becoming highly artificial—more like a puzzle to solve than a medium for personal poetic expression.

===Middle Ages===
{{further|Latin rhythmic hexameter}}

By the Middle Ages, some writers adopted more relaxed versions of the meter. [[Bernard of Cluny]], in the 12th century, for example, employs it in his ''De Contemptu Mundi'', but ignores classical conventions in favor of accentual effects and predictable rhyme both within and between verses, e.g.:

:{{lang|la|Hora no/vissima, / tempora / pessima / sunt: vigi/lemus.}}
:{{lang|la|Ecce mi/naciter / imminet / arbiter / ille su/premus.}}
:{{lang|la|Imminet / imminet / ut mala / terminet, / aequa co/ronet,}}
:{{lang|la|Recta re/muneret, /  anxia / liberet, / aethera / donet.}}

:"These are the last days, the worst of times: let us keep watch.
:Behold the menacing arrival of the supreme Judge.
:He is coming, he is coming to end evil, to crown just actions,
:Reward what is right, free us from anxieties, and give the heavens."

Not all medieval writers are so at odds with the Virgilian standard, and with the rediscovery of classical literature, later Medieval and Renaissance writers are far more orthodox, but by then the form had become an academic exercise. [[Petrarch]], for example, devoted much time to his ''[[Africa (Petrarch)|Africa]]'', a dactylic hexameter epic on [[Scipio Africanus]], completed in 1341, but this work was unappreciated in his time and remains little read today. It begins as follows:<ref>On this poem see: Mustard, W. P. (1921). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/289235 "Petrarch's Africa"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220511220217/https://www.jstor.org/stable/289235 |date=2022-05-11 }}. ''The American Journal of Philology'', 1921, Vol. 42, No. 2 (1921), pp. 97–121.</ref>

:{{lang|la|Et michi / conspicu/um meri/tis bel/loque tre/mendum,}}
:{{lang|la|Musa, vi/rum refe/res, Ita/lis cui / fracta sub / armis}}
:{{lang|la|Nobilis / eter/num prius / attulit / Africa / nomen.}}

:"To me also,<ref>Imitating ''Odyssey'' line 10: "Tell of these things, goddess, to us also".</ref> o Muse, tell of the man, 
:conspicuous for his merits and fearsome in war,
:to whom noble Africa, broken beneath Italian arms,
:first gave its eternal name."

In contrast, [[Dante]] decided to write his epic, the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' in Italian—a choice that defied the traditional epic choice of Latin dactylic hexameters—and produced a masterpiece beloved both then and now.<ref>{{cite book|first=Guy P.|last=Raffa|editor-first=Dante|editor-last=Alighieri|date=1995|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TPkqYo-6QwkC&pg=PA267|title=Dante's Inferno, The Indiana Critical Edition (Indiana Masterpiece Editions)|chapter=Dante's Beloved Yet Damned Virgil|page=267|isbn=0253209307|publisher=Indiana University Press|access-date=2019-07-25|archive-date=2024-05-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240525095841/https://books.google.com/books?id=TPkqYo-6QwkC&pg=PA267#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

With the [[Neo-Latin]] period, the language itself came to be regarded as a medium only for serious and learned expression, a view that left little room for Latin poetry. The emergence of [[Recent Latin]] in the 20th century restored classical orthodoxy among Latinists and sparked a general (if still academic) interest in the beauty of Latin poetry. Today, the modern Latin poets who use the dactylic hexameter are generally as faithful to Virgil as Rome's Silver Age poets.