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The Caesvra in Virgil, and its Bearing on the Authenticity of the Pseudo-Vergiliana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. G. D. Butcher
W. G. D. Butcher
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

IN the heroic Latin hexameter, after the essential alternation of long and short syllables, by far the most important feature is unquestionably the caesura. Nevertheless, ancient writers on metre dismiss it with the most cursory notice; all we get from them is that the chief caesura is the penthemimeral, the trochaic and hephthemimeral coming next; the fourth trochaic and the bucolic are usually rejected, and the trihemimeral is mentioned only by Ausonius, Modern writers, among whom are Müller and Winbolt, deal with the question at greater length, but do not agree even on fundamental points, and often base their statements on an insufficient analysis of the extant remains of Latin hexameter verse. The purpose of the following paper is to attempt a more complete analysis, at least in the case of Virgil, the acknowledged master of the Latin hexameter. But before we proceed further there are two preliminaries which must be settled—what are the main types of caesura, and how many caesurae are admissible in one verse?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , April 1914 , pp. 123 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1914

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References

page 125 note 1 Dr. Verrall, in his Studies in Greek and Latin Scholarship, expresses tentatively the theory that in such cases a compound word giving quasi- trihemimeral pause was required. This is how ever only so in 59 cases, and is not found in 32; the remaining 23 contain names, and so give no evidence either way.

page 125 note 2 Studies in Greek and Latin Scholarship, p. 243.

page 126 note 1 In the 1,000 lines of Virgil beginning Aen IV. I there are 272 words beginning with a vowel, and scanning–⌣⌣–, or –––. Of these 136 are compound words of the requisite type, while 75 are indivisible words, and 61 are names.

page 127 note 1 A comparison and analysis of the separate last books of the Aeneid does not give any results worthy of note, except that the hephthemimeral caesura becomes slightly more rare from first to last, and that the twelfth book shows an un-usually large number of trochaic and elided penthemimeral lines.

page 129 note 1 Dr. Lederer in his pamphlet 1st Vergil der Verfasser von Ciris und Culex ? working on purely metrical grounds quite apart from the question of the caesura, comes to the same conclusion, that the Culex is, while the Ciris is not, a genuine work of Virgil.