HENDECASYLLABIC

The most common meter of Catullus

Hendecasyllabic means 11 syllables the beat of the music is similar to the music in the movie car wash. Click on the sound link below to hear this music.

You will be marking the scansion for poem 5 of Catullus the kissing poem for event 13. You can see translations for this poem at this link:
English Translation of Catullus 5

On the next slide you will see all 13 lines of this poem which is written in the hendecasyllabic meter. There are 13 syllables in each line of the 13 lines of the poem.

Li ne
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Latin Text
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis! soles occidere et redire possunt; nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. da mi basia mille, deinde centum,

8
9 10 11 12 13

dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,

deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum; dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus, illa ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus invidere possit cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Listen to Latin professors pronouncing this poem with the meter and elisions at this site: Catullus Poem 5 recited in Latin and English Rock Version on U-Tube. Here is the scheme to this meter. Notice there are 5 feet separated by a line.

Hendecasyllabics (Phalaecean): Catullus, Poems 7 and 10 Each verse in this meter follows this pattern with some few substitutions, as indicated below:

Besides a spondee ( ), the first foot can contain a trochee ( ) or an iamb ( ).

Lets start to mark the scansion for the first line of poem 5. 1. We will start by separating 11 syllables:

The first syllable is Vi Second is va 3rd is mus 4th is me 5th is a 6th les 7th bi 8th a (a) 9th qu(e) a 10th me 11th mus

We have 2 elisions in this first line. An elision occurs when a word ends in a vowel and the next word begins with a vowel. The first vowel is elided like this: Vivamus mea Lesbi(a) atqu(e) amemus. The vowels in parentheses have been elided or skipped like we do with a contraction in English like dont.

Now lets determine the length of each syllable.

A syllable is long if it ends in a consonant. A syllable is long if it is the first syllable in a foot. A syllable is also long if it is a dipthong like ae, oe, eu. etc. A syllable is short if it ends in a vowel. First we must check our scheme for this meter.
The first foot must be 2 long syllables or what is called a spondee __ __ The second foot must be a dactyl or 1 long syllabe followed by 2 short syllables. The third and fourth foot must be a TROCHEE or a long and a short. The fifth foot can be a TROCHEE or a SPONDEE: 2 long syllables.

So here is our scheme:

1st foot = Vi Va = long long = spondee 2nd foot = mus me a = long short short = dactyl 3rd foot = Les bi = long short = trochee 4th foot = a qua = long short = trochee 5th foot = me mus = long long = spondee

So, our scansion for line 1 should look like this:

___ ___ | ___ VI VA MUS

U U | ___ U | ME A LES BI (A)AT QU(E)

___ U | ___ ____ A QUA ME MUS

There are 5 feet and 11 syllables and 2 elisions. Now you try to do the rest of the poem message Magister Sears for problem lines.