Dactylic hexameter

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Dactylic hexameter (also known as "heroic hexameter") is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with classical epic poetry, both Greek and Latin, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.

A dactyl is a collection of three syllables, the first long, the other two short; thus, the ideal line of dactylic hexameter consists of six (hexa) metrons or feet, each of which is dactyllic. Typically, however, the last foot of the line is not a real dactyl, but rather a two-syllable spondee or trochee, i.e. the penultimate syllable is always long, the final syllable either long or short (such a syllable with optional stress is known as an anceps syllable).

In reality, it is difficult to arrange words in this meter and such an arrangement would sound dull and repetitive, so poets may replace dactyls with spondees, which are feet with two long syllables. Traditionally, the fifth foot in a line is very often a real dactyl. About one line in 20 of Homer has a spondee in the fifth foot, and such a line is called "spondaic."

Hexameters also have a caesura, a word break, after the first syllable in the second, third or fourth foot, and generally in the third.

Accordingly, a line of dactylic hexameter can be diagrammed as follows. Note that - is a long syllable, u a short syllable and U either one long or two shorts:

- U | - U | - U | - U | - u u | - -

The last foot often takes the form | - u |, especially in Greek.

For example:

The "foot" is often compared to a musical measure and the long and short syllables to half notes (minims) and quarter notes (crotchets), respectively.

Homer's meter

The hexameter was first used by early Greek poets of the oral tradition, and the most complete extant examples of their works are the Iliad and the Odyssey, which influenced the authors of all later classical epics that survive today. Homer's hexameters contain a far higher proportion of dactyls than later hexameter poetry. These early examples of hexameters are also characterised by a far less rigid following of the principles that the authors of later epics almost invariably adhered to. As well as Homer's placement of a spondee in the fifth foot there are also frequent occurrences of long syllables that must be read as short. In order for a syllable to be treated as long, it must normally contain only a single short vowel and be followed by no more than one consonant (or the second element of a diphthong). So, in the following line, three vowels (έωι), one of which is generally treated as long, are treated as elements of a single "short" syllable:

χρυσέωι ἀνὰ σκήπτρωι, καὶ λίσσετο πάντας Ἀχαιούς...

(Iliad 1.15)

Additionally, words are often altered in form to allow them to fit the hexameter - ptolis, is used instead of polis, the Greek word for "city", wherever it is necessary for the poet to do so and, on occasions, the names of characters actually seem to have been altered; the spelling of the name of Homer's character Polydamas, Pouludamas, appears to be an alternative rendering of the metrically unviable Poludamas ("subduer of many"). However, in spite of the frequent exceptions in early epic, most of the later rules of hexameter composition have their origins in the methods and practices of Homer.

Latin hexameter

The hexameter is not a native Latin meter and the Latin language does not lend itself naturally to hexameter composition. The hexameter was a Greek import but one that quickly took on distinct Latin characteristics with classical writers adopting a more rigid set of conventions and practices than earlier Latin writers. The earliest example of the use of hexameter in Latin poetry is that of the Annales of Ennius, which established the dactylic hexameter as the standard for later Latin epic. Later Republican writers, such as Lucretius, Catullus and even Cicero, wrote their own compositions in the meter and it was at this time that many of the principles of Latin hexameter seem to have been established that would govern later writers such as Virgil, Ovid and Lucan. The repeated use of the heavily spondaic line came to be frowned upon, as well as the use of a high proportion of spondees in both of the first two feet. The following lines of Ennius would not have been felt admissible by later authors since they both contain repeated spondees at the beginning of a line:

his verbis: "o gnata, tibi sunt ante ferendae

Aerumnae, post ex fluvio fortuna resistet."

(Annales 1.42f)

Additionally, metrically stressed syllables, those occurring at the beginning of a foot, were generally expected to coincide with the natural stress of a word. In the following example of Ennius's early Latin hexameter composition, metrical stress falls on the second syllable of the word urbem, although the first is naturally stressed, which would have made the line awkward for a native speaker to read:

certabant urbem Romam Remoramne vocarent.

(Annales 1.86)

Classical Latin poets also avoided placing a large number of word breaks at the ends of foot divisions (particularly towards the end of a line) because such an arrangement breaks a line up and places unnecessary emphasis on the metre; the placement of a single syllable word at the end of a line; the placement of a sense break in any position other than the main ceasura, and particularly in the last two feet; and the placement of the main caesura in any position other than the third foot.

Later accomplished epic poets, such as Virgil, appear not to have violated any of these rules unless for some specific effect. In the following line of the Aeneid, for instance, the sea is said to have retreated ("to have dragged back its foot") and the caesura in the line is forced back to the fourth foot; the sense of tension in the line is increased as the reader expects a break in the third foot that does not come, and the poet creates a literal illustration of what he is describing:

impediunt, retrahitque pedem simul unda relabens.

(Aeneid 10.307)

External links

[Introduction to the dactylic hexameter] for Latin verse.
[Reading dactylic hexameter], specifically Homer.

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