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HHXAMTER PATTERNS in VERGIL by George E. Duckworth, M.A., Ph.D

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- 39 - HHXAMTER PATTERNS IN VERGIL by George E. Duckworth, M.A., Ph.D. I attempt, in this brief article, to summarize my recent investigations into Vergil's metrical procedures: the patterns he favors and their frequencies, his use of repeated, opposite, and reverse patterns in adjacent lines, the surprising manner in which Aeneid X-XII differ metrically from the Georgies and Aeneid I-IX,1 and the extent to which his favorite pattern (dsss) is affected by the style and subject matter of the Aeneid.2 1. The Hexameter Patterns. If we exclude the spondaic verses (thirty-two in Vergil's three authentic works) and consider only the verses with a dactyl and spondee (ds) in the last two feet, we have for the first four feet sixteen possible schemata, or patterns (the term I prefer to use). Since Latin poetry favors the spondee rather than the dactyl, I list the sixteen patterns as follows, beginning with all spondees in the first four feet, and ending with all dactyls. The second eight patterns are the opposite of the first eight, in reverse order.3 The underlined dactyls and spondees, as they shift in each group, should also help the reader to keep in mind the sixteen possible combinations. 4 spondees, 0 dactyls: 1. s s s s 3 spondees, 1 dactyl : 2. s s s d 3. s s d s 4. s d s s 5. d s s s 2 spondees, 2 dactyls: 6. s s d d 7. s d s d 8. d s s d (opposite patterns) 9. s d d s 10. d _s d s 11. d d £ s 1 spondee, 3 dactyls: 12. _s d d d 13. d _s d d 14. d d s d 15. d d d s 0 spondees, 4 dactyls: 16. d d d d The order of the patterns as listed above bears no relation to the frequency of their appearance. If these sixteen hexameter patterns were each used to the same extent, the frequency of each would be 6.25 per cent, but this happens neither in Greek nor in Latin poetry. The four most frequent patterns appear from 40 to 60 per cent of the time, and the percentage for t’ne first eight ranges from 65 to 85 (or more). To illustrate from Homer and Ertnius, the earliest of the Greek and Roman hexameter poets, we have the - 40- following percentages: Patterns Homer Ennius Most frequent dddd 19.93 ssss 15.35 First four: 57.99 41.34 First eight: 84.34 65.35 The eight most frequent patterns in Homer contain (in the first four feet) twenty-two dactyls and ten spondees (8x4= 32); Ennius has the exact opposite, twenty-two spondees and ten dactyls. Ennius* most frequent pattern (ssss) is the opposite of Homer's favorite (dddd), and his percent­ age for the eight most frequent patterns is almost twenty per cent lower than the corresponding percentage in Homer. At the beginning of Latin hexameter poetry there was thus less concentration on the same metrical patterns than had been the case in Homer. 2. The Patterns in Vergil. The pattern appearing most frequently in the fragments of Lucilius is sdss (16.86 per cent). It seems to have been Cicero who established dsss as the favorite pattern for the later Republican poets and they used it with a steadily increasing frequency: Cicero (Aratea and fragments), 18.28 per cent; Lucretius, 20.20; Catullus LXIV, 27.59. The concentration on the first four and the first eight patterns is likewise much greater than it had been in Ennius; the percentages are, respectively: Lucilius, 47.60, 74.21; Cicero, 57.39, 82.26; Lucretius, 54.34, 78.81; Catullus, 67.90, 90.98. This lack of variety in Catullus is amazing; his percentage for the four most frequent patterns is higher than the percentage for the first eight in Ennius, and eight of the sixteen possible patterns have in Catullus a total of only 9.02 per cent. These figures for the Republican poets enable us to see more clearly Vergil’s interest in greater metrical variety; his innovations appear most strikingly in the Eclogues, where we have the following percentages: first pattern (ddssi), 13.09 (lower even than Ennius); first four, 41.45 (cf. Ennius, 41.34); first eight, 69.09 (cf. Ennius, 65.35). The fact that ddss is the favorite pattern in the Eclogues reflects the more dactylic nature of the pastorals as a whole (partly the influence of Theocritus, partly the result of the two dactylic refrains, ddsd and dddd, in Eclogue VIII). The distribution of the spondees and dactyls in the first four feet of the eight most frequent patterns is sixteen and sixteen (cf. Cicero and Catullus: twenty spondees and twelve dactyls; Lucretius: eighteen spondees and fourteen dactyls); in both the Georgies and the Aeneid it is twenty spondees and twelve dactyls. Eclogue IV is unique among the pastorals; its percentages in relation to the other nine poems are as follows: Patterns IV I- III, v-x Moat frequent: 24.19 12.09 First four: 72.58 39.71 First eight: 91.93 68.28 The first pattern is thus twice as frequent in IV as in the other pastorals, and the percentage of the first four in IV exceeds by over four per cent friat of the first eight in the other poems. The late Professor Jackson Knight stresses the influence of Catullus LXIV on Eclogue IV: 4 The Fourth Eclogue, perhaps the most Catullan of Vergil's certain poems, recalls the hexameters of Catullus in phrases, in the unity of single lines, in schema tiza 1. i on of balanced - 41- word-order, and in the quality of the verse-groups. When we recall the Catullan percentages as given above (first pattern, 27.59; first four, 67.90; first eight, 90.98), it becomes apparent that Vergil in Eclogue IV deliberately imitates Catullus also in his metrical frequencies. In the Georgies Vergil develops a metrical uniformity lacking in the Eclogues and establishes norms which, with minor changes, determine his procedure in the Aeneid. The favorite pattern of Cicero, Lucretius, and Catullus, dsss, which was second in the Eclogues, moves into first place in the Georgies (and in each of the four books), and is likewise first in the Aeneid (and in each of the books except V and VII where ddss has a slight lead). The first eight patterns in the three works and the relevant percentages (first pattern, first four, second four, and first eight), are as follows: Eclogues Georgies Aeneid ddss 13.09 dsss 15.81 dsss 14.39 dsss dsds ddss dsds ddss dsds (dssd 41.45 sdss 48.99 sdss 46.95 (ddsd dssd ssss sdss ddds ddds ddds ssss ssds sdds 27.64 ssds 24.43 sdds 25.83 69.09 73.42 72.78 Tie least frequent pattern in all three poems is sddd. In the first-eight pattern we find a steady increase in the use of a fourth-foot spondee (Eclogues, 6; Georgies, 7; Aeneid, 8). The percentages of the eight most frequent patterns are slightly higher in the Georgies and the Aeneid than in the Eclogues, but still considerably lower than the corresponding percentages in Cicero, Lucretius, and Catullus. 3. Variety and Repetition. Another approach to the variety in Vergil’s use of metrical patterns is a division of each poem into consecutive units of sixteen verses each (disregarding spondaic verses, interpolations, and, for tlie Aeneid, all incomplete verses) and a listing of the number of the sixteen possible patterns which occur in each of these units. With half of the sixteen patterns appearing in over two-thirds, almost three-fourths, of the total verses, one might expect this number to be relatively small, but this is not the case with Vergil. In the Aeneid, for instance, only nine such sixteen-line units have less than seven patterns, whereas eleven units contain as many as thirteen patterns, as, for example, I 189-204, with no repetitions until we reach 202, the fourteenth line in the unit. The percentage of units containing eight to eleven patterns remains remarkably constant throughout Vergil's three works: Eclogues, 87.23; Georgies, 87.41; Aeneid, 86.89. The numerical average of the different patterns per sixteen-line unit is likewise amazingly consistent: Eclogues, 9.7; Georgies, 9.3; Aeneid, 9.4. With these we may compare Cicero (Aratea), 8.5; Lucretius, 8.6; and Catullus LXIV, 7.0. The same pattern may occur in two, three,or more lines in succession; these I term repeats . Only twice does Vergil use the same pattern five times in adjacent verses, and both occurrences are in his earlier poetry (Eel. X 36-40, Georg. I 46-50). Elsewhere he allows himself a maximum of - 42 - four repeated patterns and these very rarely - four times in the Georgies and only seven in the Aeneid. Often the same pattern may occur frequently but separated by one or two verses; I call these repetitions "near repeats" and when they appear, as often happens, in the vicinity of the repeats, they produce repeat clusters", which I define as passages in which six or more instances of the same pattern are found in sixteen or fewer lines, e.g. Aen. V 632-647, where dsss appears nine times. Repeat clusters occur ϊ ί Vergil as follows: Eclogues, one every 275 lines; Georgies, one every 145.5 lines; Aeneid, one every 200.1 lines; this is very different from the practice of the Republican poets: Cicero (Aratea), one every 59.6 lines; Lucretius, one every 49.2 lines; and Catullus LXIV, one every 29.0 lines.
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