388 Mb MUNRO, on A METRICAL 



neighbourhood of the caesura; in the hexameter they are for the most part in oppo- 

 sition. 



Arma virumque cano Trojae qui primus ab oris 



Italiam fate profugus Lavinaque venit. 



These two verses are on the whole very different in their movement ; yet in the middle 

 of both alike ictus and accent are in opposition, owing to the nature of the Latin accent 

 This opposition was of course quite as unintentional, as the general coincidence in the case of 

 the iambic. Both kinds of verse were adaptations from Greek models, and there any inten- 

 tional ao'reement must from the nature of the case have been out of the question. M^vw 

 aeiSe 9ed has precisely the same rhythmical movement as drma virumque cano; and there 

 accent and ictus coincide at the caesura. Nay it has been shewn above that words like 

 illuc, illinc, tanton, taltn are always accentuated on the last syllable. Now in Virgil and 

 other poets we frequently find verses thus commencing : Expediat ? tanton placuit, Arte 

 mover ? talin possum. Nunc hue nunc illAc, Nunc hinc nunc illinc ; and these verses have the 

 same rhythmical effect as Italiam fato, etc.; and yet have accent and ictus in agreement, not 

 opposition, at the caesura. 



There is another peculiarity to be noted in the structure of the hexameter. Even in * 

 Homer, although he has many other varieties, the most common cadences at the end of a verse 

 are either such as aXye eOijKe, Tevy^e Kvveaatv, ^vvetjKe fxa-^eaOai, or else ereXeteTo fiovXij, 

 ^vSave OvfjLco. In the Latin hexameter, at least in the poems of its great master Virgil and his 

 successors, cadences similar to those just quoted are almost universal, qui primus ab oris, 

 Lavinaque venit, conderet urbem. Now in Greek such cadences are of course totally 

 independent of accent. aXye' eOi^Kev, (l>oT/3os ' AiroXXwv, avrdp 'Oovtjcrevi, HaXXds 'AOi^vt], 

 5(os 'AviXXeiKs have all different accents, sometimes agreeing with, sometimes opposed to the 

 metrical ictus ; and yet we feel and see and know that the rhythmical movement is in all the 

 same. The case is very different in Latin. From the nature of its accent ictus and accent 

 must generally, not by any means always, be in agreement, when the verse terminates in the 

 manner mentioned. But this coincidence was of course merely accidental, for the accent did 

 not determine the choice of such cadences, but merely a judicious imitation of Greek models. 

 Indeed Virgil excludes carefully such terminations to a verse as vis animdi, saecla animan- 

 tum, common in Lucretius and others, where accent is just as much in agreement with ictus, 

 as in primus ab oris, moenia Romae. Rhythm, not accent, determined his practice. All the 

 great masters then of the elevated heroic have with fine tact, the reasons for which we can feel, 

 if we cannot explain, given to the end this free open fall in opposition to the involution of 

 rhythm which the caesura occasions in the middle of the verse ; avoiding unless for special 

 effects such terminations as ilicibus sus, procumhit humi bos, per inceptos hymenaeos. And 

 here we come to a phaenomenon similar to what we have already encountered more than once. 

 In the oldest specimen of what may be called popular hexameters extant, the Praenestinae 

 sortes, some of which we quoted above, this regular fall of the end of the verse had not yet 

 so fully established itself, and out of the small number of verses, the exceptions to this 

 cadence are very large : quod rogas non est, where quod and non have probably no accent, but 

 join on to the following words ; tempus abit jam ; veht non potes istoo. We find also id sequi 



