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CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE MODERN HEXAMETER.

105. Ir is somewhat satisfactory to be assured by the example of Commodian, that in our present mode of reciting the ancient hexameter we are not imposing upon it a system borrowed from our modern tongues, but only continuing one which has come down to us from the Latin, and into which the prosody of that tongue had degenerated even before the language itself had melted down into the modern tongues of Europe. In the higher walks of literature, indeed, the corruption was long resisted. And yet the structure of the verse of Claudian induces a suspicion that he wrote Latin verse much as we write it, according to the ears of Virgil and Ovid, rather than his own. In the lower walks, it may be doubted if quantity ever had over Latin verse that strict dominion which it exercised over Greek.

106. It is obvious that for its proper construction upon the basis of stress, the hexameter

requires a language which has few monosyllables, and gives some length to its words; namely, three syllables to each on an average, as in the Latin. Otherwise, not only will the pauses be put into confusion by the minute division of the line, but it will be impossible to regulate the stress with marks sufficiently definite, since so many syllables will bear it. Thus, at the very outset, the attempt seems hopeless with us. We may as well endeavour to build the architrave of a Grecian portico with the flints which are used in the architecture of the Norfolk and Suffolk churches; for we are quite unsupplied with a store of words of sufficient span. And, indeed, in any modern tongue, the necessary introduction of articles and prepositions, and auxiliary verbs, a large class of generally monosyllabic words, is fatal to the undertaking. The nature of the attempt in our language will be best seen by the following specimen, which is the opening of the "Georgics," rendered foot for foot and pause for pause, with as much attention to sense as the extreme difficulty of the case would allow.

What generates wheaten plenitude. What sideral season
Ordereth, Macænas, ploughers: accommodates vinetrees
For marrying: what tendeth oxen, for shepherds awaketh
Care pastoral, apiaries what instrumentality serveth,
These verses enunciate: O ye allglorious beacons,
Glidingly directing onwards heaven's annual circuit,

Bacchus and fostering Ceres, under whose influence holy
Chaonian acorns vanish'd, wheatharvests arising,
Generous winegoblets Acheloian beverage temper'd.

The reader will readily see what a large demand a very few verses of this kind must make upon the Latin part of our tongue, and to what rudely spliced compounds of the native English it must drive us. Elms, vines, bees, sheep, stars, year, wheat, cannot find a place where they are most wanted. The hexameter in English proves to be a sort of foreign court in a country, excluding all the natives.

107. Since, however, some think that they may consider it as one of the measures of our language, we will give it some further consideration.

We have seen that its basis is essentially iambic. And since in its more regular form it lays five stresses, it turns out to be with us neither more nor less than a resolution of our English heroic line, such as,

Despairing máids lamented lóvely Dáphnis :

resolve the third foot, as our dramatic poetry freely allows after the pause there (69), and put the necessary dactyl in the fifth, and we have,

Despairing máidens lamented béautiful Dáphnis ;

exactly equivalent to

Extínctum nýmphæ crudéli fúnere Dáphnin.

Take another form, with six places of stress,

Fáir hónour ne'er surrénders, e'ér endúreth,

and we have, by resolution after the stress,

Fáirest honour néver surrenders, éver endúreth,

which is the same as

Dígnus hónos, squálent abdúctis árva colónis.

By adding unaccented syllables at the stresses, we may resolve the line further, as

Inánimate, périshing, irrecláimable, beaútiful Dáphnis,
Fáirest hónour deprecateth surréndering, éver endúreth.

And thus we may arrive at a line of the same number of feet, but of much more length, as we did in the case of the accentuated hexameter;

proof again of the vagueness of this measure when based upon accent or stress. But there can be no doubt that it is this secret analogy with our heroic which principally recommends the hexameter to our ear.

108. But so difficult is its execution on this plan, owing to our deluge of monosyllables, that our writers have had recourse to that which of all things they most carefully avoid in reciting it

in its native languages. They proceed by way of scanning, laying the stress continually on the place of the long syllable. This is not only utterly intolerable in movement, being like the trot or canter of a miserably lame horse; but utterly destroys also all perception of the pauses, which on the foregoing plan are exhibited in such fulness and variety. The pause in the middle of the third foot, which is in itself so majestic, very often falls on a monosyllable, and thus becomes a dead halt, after which the line limps somewhat further again. Indeed, we seem to be playing at the child's game, and hop to this pause, then skip to the dactyl in the fifth, and thence jump to the end. And it perpetually recurs so strongly marked as to be unrelieved by any other of sufficient strength. A line may be drawn through its place, from the top to the bottom of the page, as thus,

Painted with brilliant dies | and adorned with tassels of crimson, Nodded in bright array, | like hollyhocks heavy with blossom ; Patiently stood the cows | meanwhile, and yielded their udders Into the milkmaid's hand | whilst loud and in regular cadence Into the sounding pail | the foaming streamlets descended

What would the classical admirers of such lines as these say to the following, which are constructed with the same feet and pauses, but with much more difficulty in Latin than that former

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