The second, fourth, and sixth feet are always pure iambi: no instance of a spondee in the third occurs, though doubtless it might. The fourth foot ends with a word, and no trisyllabic foot occurs. 1.-Sapphic Metre Two poems in the Sapphic metre have come down to us: XI, LI; and an isolated stanza tacked on in the mss. to LI by an accident. Catullus differs from the Horatian structure in the fact that he admits, after the Greek model, a trochee in the second foot: Seu Sacas sagittiferosve Parthos. Otium Catulle tibi molestum est. He strictly observes synaphea: XI. 19, 22; but the reading of XI. II is doubtful: Gallicum Rhenum horribilesque ulti- He uses both caesuras-after the fifth and sixth syllables. vi.-Galliambic Metre This metre is only used in the Attis (LXIII). It is probably a variety of Ionic a minore, of the kind called Anaclomenos (avaкλúμevos, bent back'). The Ionic Anaclomenos is far from uncommon in Greek choral odes. It consists of1 the 3rd Paeon (-) followed by the 2nd Epitrite (---) 1 These responsive cola are often met with in Greek lyric poetry, and were also well known to Latin writers, as Laevius, Protesilaudamia: Inibi inruunt cachinnos Ioca dicta risitantes. See the σὺ δέ μ ̓ ὦ μάκαιρα Δίρκα στεφαναφόρους ἀπωθεῖ EUR. Bacch. 530. ἀμέγαρτα γὰρ τάδε Ζεὺς ἰδίοις νόμοις κρατύνων. The only difference between these lines and the Galliambic is that in the Galliambic the fourth foot is a Proceleusmaticus. It is not known who introduced this but it, the fourth foot, this Proceleusmaticus, is the essential characteristic of the Galliambic metre as written by Catullus: its introduction at once gave the metre a stichal character, and at the same time became highly expressive of the tremulous and excited state of the votaries of the Great Mother. The Galliambic proper is not found in any Greek author, and whether it was invented by a Greek or Latin writer is not even known. It is extremely rare in Latin: besides the Attis it is found in Varro, Cycnus 1 (Sat. Men. Riese p. 114) Eumenides xxxvI (p. 132) and Marcipor xvi (p. 164). Three lines from Varro's Eumenides xxxv (p. 132) are also in Galliambic metre, but in the modification more resembling that described by Hephaestion, which admits regular Ionics a minore, and allows the last foot to be an anapaest: and in lines attributed to Maecenas, addressed to the Great Mother, which conform to the rules of Catullus. I know of no others. As the metre is so rare, I will give all these instances here: : Varro Cycnus 1 : Tua templa ad alta fani properans citus itere. Epigram on Hadrian by Florus and the reply to it by the Emperor : Ego nolo Caesar esse etc. Baehrens Frag. Poet. Rom. p. 373. These dimeters are generally called Anacreontics. Varro Eumen. 36: Phrygios per ossa cornus liquida canit anima. Varro Eumen. 35: Tibi typana non inanis sonitus Matris Deum Maecenas : and Ades, inquit, O Cybebe, fera montium dea Latus horreat flagello, comitum chorus ululet. Baehrens, Frag. Poet. Rom. p. 339. In the Greek choral odes where the Ionic anaclomeni occur, the normal Ionic a minore often reappears along with the 3rd Paeon and 2nd Epitrite: and according to the mss. the Ionic a minore is found in two lines of the Attis: 54, 60. Most modern critics regard these readings as corrupt, and the normal form is capable of easy restoration. The processes of contraction of two short syllables into one long one, and of resolution of one long syllable into two short, occur frequently in the Attis : Contraction : Sectam meam executae duce me mihi comites. Resolution: Stimulatus ibi furenti rabie vagus animi. Contraction Occurs twenty times : Resolution fifteen times. Both processes are common in similar Greek metres. The second foot always ends with the end of a word: but once (vs. 37) elision is permitted here. vii.-Glyconic Metre The thirty-fourth poem consists of three Glyconics (Dianae sumus in fide) followed by a Pherecratean (Puellaeque canamus). The sixty-first poem consists or consisted of four Glyconics followed by a Pherecratean. In the thirty-fourth poem Catullus employs trochees, spondees, or iambi as the first foot both of Glyconics and Pherecrateans: trochees rather more frequently than spondees: iambi only in the first stanza, which, strange to say, supposing Diana to begin with an iambus, as it probably does, has every line beginning with an iambus. As Catullus nowhere else admits an iambus here, not once in the long sixty-first poem, and as this ode might well begin with O Latonia in vs. 5, the question unavoidably arises whether the first four lines. (or rather three, for the third is not in the mss.) be not a later addition. In the sixty-first poem the Glyconic and Pherecratean for the most part begin with a trochee: but a spondee is found twelve times in the former, twice in the latter. Contraction of two short syllables into one long occurs once, vs. 25 (umore). In both poems synaphea is strictly observed, and deviations from it in the mss. must be corrected. The first Io in LXI. 117 etc. is, as Dawes and Munro have shown, a monosyllable (Jo). viii. Priapean Metre (xvII) This metre consists of a Glyconic followed by a Pherecratean. The Glyconic always ends with the end of a word : O Colonia quae cupis | ponte ludere longo. The normal structure of both cola has a trochee in the first foot, for which the Glyconic often, the Pherecratean only twice, 19 and 20, admits a spondee. If Fragment is the latter part of a Priapean verse, Catullus either admitted an iambus, or lengthened the first syllable of ligurrire : de meo ligurrire libido est. ix.-The Greater Ascelepiad (xxx) This consists of a spondee, three choriambi, and an iambus : Alfene immemor atque unanimis false sodalibus. Neither Catullus nor Horace, who uses this metre thrice, Carm. i. 11, 18; iv. 10, admits a trochee in the first foot, though Sappho, 'the whole of whose third book,' as Ellis remarks, was written in this metre, apparently in distichs,' used the trochee as freely as the spondee. Horace always makes the first and second choriambus end with a word. Catullus, following Sappho's example, not always. x.-The Hexameter Little need be said here as to Catullus's employment of the hexameter, a verse which he brought to nearly the greatest perfection of which it is capable.1 The student need only remark his predilection for spondaic hexameters ; 2 see Index. He does not always 1 See, for instance, the noble verses LXIV. 338-346. 2 Cic. ad Att. 7. 2: ita belle nobis 'flavit ab Epiro lenissimus Onchesmites: hunc σπονδειάζοντα si cui voles τῶν νεωτέρων pro tuo vendita. |