How to Read Latin Poetry
(Under
construction, more to come!)
This website started from a desire to understand what classical Latin poetry
would originally have sounded like. Of course, this is something we cannot know for certain, but there are a few remaining
texts, for example the De Musica, by St. Augustine that describe in great detail the sounds, rhythms and metres of ancient
Latin poems.
Assuming you know how to read Latin and that you're reasonably good at scansion,
let's start with a few pointers.
1. Carefully distinguish all long and short vowels. Remember to hold
a long vowel about twice as long as a short one. (If you find yourself speaking at a snail's pace, you're probably holding
your long vowels way too long!)
2. Disregard the actual stress accent in a word in favor of the ictus
within the pes.
For example, the famous opening line of the Aeneid read according to stress-accent:
Árma virúmque cáno
However, in this case the accent on cano interfers with the ictus which
falls on the -o of canó, so we must disregard the natural accent.
Don't be alarmed if you notice more than one ictus in a single word, it's normal.
3. When we scan Latin poetry it is customary to mark the length of
each vowel and to make a dividing line between each pes. This is a good practice just remember don't pause at the end
of each pes or the rhythm will elude you.
4. Elision!
