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The Saturnian Metre The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here The Saturnian Metre E. V. Arnold The Classical Review / Volume 21 / Issue 04 / June 1907, pp 100 - 104 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00167435, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00167435 How to cite this article: E. V. Arnold (1907). The Saturnian Metre. The Classical Review, 21, pp 100-104 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00167435 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.159.70.209 on 31 Mar 2015 1OO THE CLASSICAL REVIEW involve aierg for durav. I have endeavoured TVX>] Tt. The pap. also omits v. 424 IlaXXas r' to fill Orpheus' lacunae above: Biicheler eypf/idxO K(" *Apre/u« Jo^eatpa. In the Orphic thinks that afipa8[irns and %to/8do>v v. 12 version they were goddesses (col. 3.7). are ' Macedonian': not unless the hymn to The fourteenth century tradition is un- Apollo is Macedonian too (j8oT/?os 375 in M): impugned. I only wish there had been more though not as common as )8 = u, /J=<£ is a of the document, and that it had not, insita trivial error. papyrorum improbitate, avoided the difficult (7) 268, col. 2. 7. Demeter's declaration places of the Hymn. in Orpheus is a mixture of 268 and 55 sq. One or two of Biicheler's general conclu- with necessary re-arrangements. sions are perhaps unfounded : the last line of the papyrus will hardly supply KOOOSOS Koprjs (8) 418 sq., col. 2. 7 : the list of the as a title (p. 16), and why should the home Oceanides. The pap. gives the names of the treatisefas of the papyrus be Egyptian correctly, as Hesiod, and avoids the corrup- (p. 17)? Why, lastly, will the professor still tion of the Mosquensis. It omits 419, as talk of oprfpov vfivoi cts TTJV Srjfir/rpa and never Pausanias : both in Pausanias and the pap. forgive the rubricator his colon ? the omission is due to homoeomeson, layy rt, T. W. ALLEN. THE SATURNIAN METRE.1 SLIGHT as is the direct importance of Friedrich Leo, appears to be well equipped the Saturnian metre in connexion with for the task he has undertaken; but an Latin literature, it is very considerable in English reader might fairly wish that his its bearing on the general question of the arrangement of his material was more orderly development of the art of verse, because and his style more perspicuous. If how- here alone in Latin we observe a spontaneous ever something is lacking in these direct- Italian development, in contrast to the ions, we may still be grateful for the overwhelming influence of the direct imitation fulness of matter which is concentrated in his of Greek in other departments of Latin treatise. poetry. It is true that this contrast may The expositors of the Saturnian verse easily be exaggerated. Granted that the are roughly divided into two classes, those Saturnian is an Italian metre, it may never- who accept quantity as its basis and those theless have much in common with the who interpret it by accent. Leo adheres- Plautine metres, which at least found appre- firmly to the older view that the metre is, ciation amongst the commons of Rome; quantitative, and essentially of the same and on the other hand, in spite of the direct character as the Plautine metres. We may imitation of Greek metres by Ennius, Virgil, however well ask for more precise definitions- and Horace, the genius of the Latin language of the principles of the old Latin metres. is indelibly stamped on their verse composi- So far as these admit long and short syllables, tions. For a real appreciation of any of indifferently in the syllables without ictus (as these metres two qualities are especially is more often than not the case both in, needed : a broad knowledge of the possi- the Plautine metres and in the Saturnian)- bilities of metre in the pre-Christian era, the metres are not quantitative but syllabic :- and a capacity for estimating fairly the value so far as two short syllables are reckoned the of different kinds of evidence. In both these equivalent of one long syllable they are points the well-known Plautine scholar, Prof. strictly quantitative. A truer description of 1 the Saturnian seems to be given by Frederic Der Saturnische Vers. Von FRIEDRICH LEO. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1905. 4to. Allen (Kuhn's Zeitschrift xxiv., p. 583),. Pp. iv + 79. Price M. 5.50. when he uses the term ' half-quantitative.1' THE CLASSICAL REVIEW IOI Even so no hint is given of the feature of In the important article of F. Allen to this verse which consists in the complete which we have already referred the Saturnian suppression of syllables in arsis. If therefore verse is explained as arising from the com- we continue to describe this metre as ' quan- bination of two iambic tetrapodies, with titative,mauve, ' we calcanl imionly meauicanu buyy iut thanidti thme suppressioauppitooivn uofi thme fourthluuiui,, fifth, and eighth element of quantity is not to be ignored. arses: the type is therefore 1234 S 6 7 8 I X. I ^ JL. I " JL. I JL. malum dabunt Metil- It Nafrvid po'e- tat with the qualification that the syllables of suppression of the syllable without ictus the fourth and eighth feet, though originally in the first, second, or sixth foot; (b) shifting having ictus, had for practical purposes of the ictus in the first foot, giving a chori become syllables in arsis. ambus (_ w ^ _) as the first section of the This is substantially the view of Leo also, verse; (c) disregard of the third caesura, and it corresponds with the form of the and further changes dependent upon this. Saturnian accepted by Caesius Bassus as To exhibit in a scheme all the possible typical. This is of the more importance, in forms which may result from these licenses Leo's view, because Bassus probably follows would be illusory: the number of possible Varro in this point, and because this form is forms would far exceed the number of actually predominant in all the Scipio inscrip- existing Saturnian verses, and almost any tions except the first. The strong interest prose sentence of the required general of the Scipionic family in the beginnings length would find a place somewhere with- of Latin literature will reasonably account in the scheme. It is therefore clearly for a special choiceness in the metrical form necessary to distinguish between those of these inscriptions. liberties that may be freely used and those This form however is only referred to that are exceptional. by the Latin grammarians as one out of We shall now take the various points several types of the Saturnian; and of some in order, and examining the Saturnian verses 180 Saturnian verses which we possess less accepted by Leo, consider how far his theory than half can be directly accommodated to is consistent and convincing. it. A thorough treatment of the question The whole number of verses examined therefore involves two points: (i) a precise is about 185, but of these many are defective. determination of the dominant form; (ii) a All authorities agree as to the caesura general explanation of the other possible in the middle of the verse, to which forms of the Saturnian, and of their relation we find only two or three exceptions. to the dominant form. Our author examines Of the first half of the verse we have about every recorded Saturnian in order to solve 167 examples, of which only from 10 to 15 these problems. are without caesura; of the last half 156 In the dominant form he considers (p. 34) examples, of which 19 are without caesura, •the following to be the characteristic features: in addition to 13 which disagree altogether (a) caesura after each second foot, dividing with the scheme. It seems therefore clear the verse into four approximately equal that the triple pause is an essential feature parts; (b) at the caesura, hiatus and syllaba of the Saturnian, although (as Leo notes) dnceps are permissible; (*) in the third the pause is not so well established in and seventh feet the syllables without ictus the middle of the second half-verse as may be suppressed; (d) in the sixth foot elsewhere. the syllable without ictus must be short; Hiatus is a feature dependent upon the (e) a long syllable in any position may caesura: it is necessary to postulate it at be replaced by two short syllables. the three points 15, 21, and 4 times respect- The variant forms are created by (a) ively. These figures establish hiatus as a IO2 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW permissible variation at the first two caesuras; in itself, but also a substantial confirmation of but the small number of instances at the Leo's view that the metrical principles of third caesura tends to increase the doubt the Saturnian are to be traced also in other as to the importance of this pause. forms of Latin verse. The phrase syllaba anceps needs closer We next come to the suppression of the definition. As used of the final syllable syllables in arsis in the third and seventh in every variety of Latin verse it means feet, by which the second and fourth sections that short and long syllables are used of the verse are reduced to spondees. This indifferently (that is, equally), in this position. suppression takes place 13 times in the third But as used in connexion with the caesura it foot, and 25 times in the seventh.
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