The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

METRES OF HORACE. IXVU
place, which renders the verse much more melodious and flowing.
The Sapphic stanza, both in Greek and Latin, is composed
of three Sapphics and one Adonic. (No. 4.) As the Adonic
sometimes was irregularly subjoined to any indefinite number
of Sapphics {vid. Kemarks on Adonic verse), so, ou other occa-
sions, the Sapphics were continued in uninterrupted succession,
terminating as they had begun, without the' addition of an Adon-
ic even at the end, as in Boethius, lib. 2, meti". 6 ;
Seneca, Troa-
des, act 4.
The caesura always falls in the third foot, and is of two kinds,
namely, the strong and the weak. The strong caesura falls after
the first syllable of the dactyl, and makes the most melodious
.ines; as,
lnte\ger iM\ta || scSU\r^squS pur&s
|
Non i\get Mau\rl jdcii\lis nee 1| | drcii
Nee vl\nend\tis grdvi\dd sd\gUtis.
\\
The weak caesura, on the other hand, falls after the second
syllable of the dactyl ; as in the following
LaMre\d dd\ndndiis ||
A\pBlli\ndri
Ptniis I out lm\pulsd || cu\pressiis \ EnrS.
Horace generally has the strong caesura. If the third foot,
however, has the weak caesura, it must be followed by a word
of two or more syllables. Thus, besides the two lines just giv-
en, we may cite the following :
Concines majore || poeta plectro
Caesarem quandoque |{
:
trahet feroces, &c>
With regard to the caesura of the foot, it is worth noticing, that
in the Greek Sapphics there is no necessity for any conjunction
of the component feet by caesura, but every foot may be term-
inated by an entire word. This freedom forms the characteris-
tic feature of the Greek Sapphic, and is what chiefly distinguish-
es it fi'om the Latin Sapphic, as exhibited by Horace.
In Sapphics, the division of a word between two lines fre-
quently occurs ; and, what is remarkable, not compound, but
simple words, separately void of all meaning ;
as,
Lahitur ripa, Jove non probante, ux-
orius amnis.
This circumstance, together with the fact of such a division