20. Equally famous is the Alcaic Strophe, also in four verses, composed of two Greater Alcaics (§ 15), a Nine-syllable Alcaic (§ 13), and a Lesser Alcaic (§ 12), thus:

21. Another four-lined strophe consists of three Lesser Asclepiads (§ 10) and a Second Glyconic (§ 11), thus:

22. A fourth form of four-lined strophe consists of two Lesser Asclepiads (§ 10), a second Pherecratic (§ 9), and a second Glyconic (§ 11), thus:

I>ILUVILI fuul LULLA

Many scholars write the third verse of this strophe as a logaoedic tetrapody

23. The few other lyric strophes found in this book will be treated, as they occur, in the notes.

24. Few of the metres of the ancients can be adequately reproduced in English verse. For the latter is written according to the accent of syllables or the emphasis placed on important words, but in ancient poetry the quantity of syllables was the determining factor. English versification does not depend on quantity in the ancient understanding of the term. Since quantity in this sense is foreign to English, attempts to write English verse in ancient metres usually result in a wholly foreign product; and most of the more difficult metres, when reproduced in English, are intelligible only to classical scholars, and rarely satisfactory even to them. In the simpler metres, however, some more or less successful imitations have been made.

25. The Trochaic Septenarius (p. 13) may be imitated in English more easily than any other ancient metre. Longfellow's Psalm of Life, Lowell's Present Crisis (see above, p. 1), and Tennyson's Locksley Hall 2 are well known examples of it.

26. Longfellow's Evangeline is an instance of an English poem written after the pattern of Dactylic Hexameter. But quantity, real or supposed, receives scarcely any attention in it. Dr. Hawtrey's version of a passage in the Iliad (3. 234 ff.) is more satisfactory in this respect :

'Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia;

Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember;
Two, two only remain whom I see not among the commanders,
Kastor fleet in the car, Polydeukes brave with the cestus,' etc.

27. The best modern imitation of the Elegiac Distich (§ 17) is Schiller's couplet :

'Im Hexameter steigt des Springquells flüssige Säule,
Im Pentameter drauf fällt sie melodisch herab,'

which is thus rendered by Coleridge:

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column,
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.'

28. The Iambic Senarius, called in English poetry the Alexandrine, is represented in the second verse of the following (from Pope's Essay on Criticism): 'A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.'

But in Alexandrines a word regularly ends with the third foot. diaeresis was avoided in the Senarius.

Such a

1 For an account of the Elizabethan writers who endeavored to restore the ancient metres, see F. E. Schelling's Poetic and Verse Criticism of the Reign of Elizabeth, Philadelphia, 1891. ? A verse from Tennyson's Locksley Hall Sixty Years After illustrates the difference between the ancient and the modern systems. In

Very woman of very woman, nurse of ailing body and mind,
and next

the same word woman would have first the quantity
of quantity in English verse.

if we could speak

29. Among imitations of logaɔedic metre, Tennyson's verses in Phalaecean (§ 14) or Hendecasyllables are the most successful 1:

'O you chorus of indolent reviewers,
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,

Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem

All composed in a metre of Catullus,' etc.

30. Tennyson's experiment in the Alcaic Strophe (§ 20) betrays its foreign origin still more clearly. It begins:

'O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,

O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,

God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages.'

31. The following example of the Sapphic Strophe (§ 19) shows, still more than Tennyson's Alcaics, how unsuited such metres are to our language. It is a translation, by J. Addington Symonds, of Sappho's Second Ode (cf. Catullus, 21):

'Peer of gods he seemeth to me, the blissful

Man who sits and gazes at thee before him,
Close beside thee sits, and in silence hears thee

Silverly speaking,

Laughing love's low laughter. Oh this, this only
Stirs the troubled heart in my breast to tremble!
For should I but see thee a little moment,

Straight is my voice hushed,' etc.

32. The Greek metres, which the Romans merely adapted, were intimately connected with music, and the poet was originally composer of the tune as well as of the words of his song. For each syllable there was ordinarily a single note corresponding to the quantity of the syllable. The original music of the great songs of antiquity is of course lost. But it is possible by means of modern music to gain an idea of the correspondence of the quantity of syllables with musical time. Thus, if we imagine that logaoedic verse was written in three-eighths time, with a trochee equivalent to and a cyclic dactyl to tunes may

be composed to fit any of the ancient strophes. To illustrate this point, the editors are kindly permitted by Professor F. D. Allen, to publish his music composed for the Alcaic and Sapphic 2 strophes, as follows:

1 Both here and in Tennyson's Alcaics, the ancient rules are pretty strictly followed, even to the lengthening of syllables by 'position' before two consonants.

2 In the well known music to Integer Vitae, the composer, Flemming, did not attempt to make the notes correspond to the quantity of the syllables.

ALCAICS.

Vi-des ut al ta stet ni-ve can-di-dum So-rac - te, nec iam sus-ti-ne ant

ENNIUS.

(239-169 B. C.)

{Mackail, Chap. 1.

Cruttwell, pp. 68-74.
Sellar, P. R., Chap. 4.

*Lucretius, i. 117,

Ennius ut noster cecinit qui primus amoeno
detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret.

Quintilian, 10. 1. 88,

Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora iam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem.

1. Ilia, who was to become the mother of Romulus and Remus, relates her prophetic dream to her stepsister. According to Ennius, Ilia (the Rea Silvia of Livy 1. 3. 11) was the daughter of Aeneas and Lavinia.

Prose translation in Sellar, P. R. p. 109.

ger

I. anus: Ilia's sister, a much older woman, has come to the bedside with a light. She was perhaps aroused by Ilia's cries in her sleep. - artubus: final s does not always help to make 'position' in early Latin; cf. verses 4, 13, 17, and A. & G. 347, 5, e. - 2. memorat: the subject is Ilia.-3. Eurydica: she was, according to the Cyprian Lays, a former wife of Aeneas.-6. novos: strange. 7. postilla: note the quantity of the ultima, as in interea and praetereā. · mana own. - - sorōr: the original long quantity is retained. Cf. A. & G. 359, f, and footnote. - With this and the following two verses cf. Vergil's imitation in Dido's dream, Aen. 4. 466, semperque relinqui | sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur | ire viam, et Tyrios deserta quaerere terra. — 8. vestigare: track, search. -9. corde capessere: attain (to thee), reach.- -12. fluvio: she became the wife of the god of the river. resistet: rise again (= restituetur, cf. 7. 1), a very rare sense; cf. Cic. Mur. 84, nihil est iam unde nos reficiamus aut ubi lapsi resistamus. 15. multa: nom. sing., many a time. - templa: tract, circuit. - Note the alliterations in this verse, and cf. verses 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14.