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CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE MODERN RECITATION OF ANCIENT VERSE.

96. THAT We enjoy a perception of great harmony when we recite the ancient measures is indisputable; as also that such harmony very much surpasses any that we can derive from all the stores of modern versification. And yet we must derive it from a source quite other than the original and true, which was the proportion of quantity. For let any one try to recite (if he can) a line, strictly according to its long and short syllables: he will find in it rather the reverse of what he has been accustomed to consider as harmony, and at least his attention will be diverted from the pauses. Let him again make the nearest approach to quantity that stress can give, by laying it on all the long syllables. This has no foundation in the position of accent or quantity, and the result is nothing but the intolerable jingle, which reminds him of his days of scanning schoolboyhood. And here, again, he has no pro

per perception of the pauses. Let him, lastly, substitute stress for the Latin accent, and recite accordingly in the usual way. He finds a most agreeable harmony, and is delighted with the rich variety of the pauses. And all is seemingly as unaccountable as agreeable; for all the rules of quantity have been quite overturned, and even directly contradicted. Iambuses and spondees are turned into trochees, as in nóvis, causam; tribrachs, anapæsts, and cretics into dactyls, as in fáciat, ségetes, cándidos. And two dissyllabic words in sequence, as Témpla Déum, Déum Témpla, saévæ féræ, álta júga, &c., compose what feet they will according to quantity, are to us all double trochees; and two trisyllabic will either form the double dactyl, as in ségetes ápibus, múrmurant latices; or a combination of the amphibrach and dactyl, as in habéndo pécori. Hence it comes to pass that our modern recitation conveys no analogous notion of any ancient Latin measure, except of the trochaic quite pure, of the dactylic quite pure, and of the latter only in those cases where the foot is contained in a word, or in the combination of the trochee and amphibrach, represented in cultus habéndo. But one real dactyl can stress substituted for accent bring out of the wholly dactylic hexameter,

Quadrupedánte pédum sónitu quátit úngula cámpum.

Even as to our sense of the iambic measures, which are most congenial of all with our notions of harmony, forming as they do the staple of our own versification, we are continually at fault owing to the nature of the Latin accent, which will not allow a dissyllable to be an iambus, but makes it a trochee. Hence a multitude of lines are to us scazons, and we even go so far as to end a trimeter with three trochees; thus in Horace, Epod. xvii. 37; xviii. 17.

Effáre, jússas cum fíde poénas lúam.

In mónte sáxum. Sed vétant léges Jóvis.

If we open Horace at the first Ode, we shall find that we make the trochaic movement in “Naúta sécet máre," equivalent to the dactylic in "Edite régibus;" again, in "Láudat rúra súi," to the iambic in "Myrtóum pávidus; also, the iambic movement "Mæcénas átavis," to be responded to by the trochaic "Evitáta rótis:" and in general the dactyl in quantity may be in accent an amphibrach, as in convéniat, or a cretic, as in fudit équum; and thus suit the iambic or trochaic measures instead of the dactylic.

However, therefore, we must learn to compose the ancient measures according to the ancient prosody, yet we must have recourse to a very different principle in considering the rules of the

modern recitation of them. This seems hardly to have been discussed, and assuredly never has been ascertained.

97. Of course, the basis of it, which is the stress laid on the seats of the Latin accent, must be one which lies at the foundation of the prevailing rhythm of our modern tongues. And this as we have already seen (15), is the iambic For example, according to our pronun

measure.

ciation, the Sapphic,

Árte matérna rápidos morántes

is a good dramatic line, running as,

Questions important ágitate debáters

with the common licence of the trochee in the first place. But it will also supply in its first three feet and half as many to the commencement of an accentuated hexameter, as in,

Arte matérna rápidos | per saxa morantem;

or of a trimeter, such as in Hor. Epod. vii. 5, Nón ut supérbas ínvidæ | Carthaginis.

And the very dactylic cast of the line,

Convéniat quæ cúra bóum quí | cultus habendo,

can be represented exactly in its first four feet, by our heroic, as in,

Convénience, which éver órders, ís | always directing.

And, again, that of

Líber et álma Céres, véstro sí | númine téllus,

by

Bácchus and joyous Céres únder your | óffices kíndly.

In many cases also the trimeter, by the simple addition of the one syllable which is wanting to make it equal in the number of syllables to the hexameter, which has but the one dactyl, becomes an hexameter. Of the thirty-three trimeters which enter into Horace's sixteenth Epode, seven thus become hexameters, namely, verses 2, 4, 10, 20, 48, 52, 60. Thus,

Néque impudíca Cólchis (huc) íntulit pédem,

is as to accent as perfect an hexameter as

Námque indeféssos ártus non ópprimit aétas.

98. The iambic then seems to be at the foundation of all the harmony which we can make out of the chief ancient measures according to our recitation, except in the case, of course, of the trochaic; which, however, as we have seen, we mix most strangely with the iambic, so as to go quite contrary to the rule of quantity, which sets these two measures in as opposite directions as possible. This mixture it will be necessary to